Fiesta 35
by Mackiecam
Summary: When Julie, Rachel and Ron arrive in Trenton for Steph's and Ranger's wedding, Steph and Ranger learn that Julie is being stalked by a pedophile. Steph and Ranger, with help from the Rangeman team, deal with this threat in and around the wedding activities. Definitely a babe. I'm going to try to post this book twice per day.
1. Chapter 1

_The following story is a work of fiction_ _that features characters developed by Janet Evanovich. No money has been earned through writing this story. Any similarities to real events or persons are __entirely coincidental. _

_Although a stand-alone, this book builds upon the previous books in my series. Because it is a stand-alone, however, there is a lot of review in the first chapter and a lot of explanation of how I have changed the characters and storylines from JE's. I know some people find that a bit tedious. If you are sensitive to that and don't want the review, feel free to skip reading the first chapter._

_Out of the previous books in my series, the first one is a bit cupcake-y, but the rest are pure babes and develop the relationships between the characters. For maximum enjoyment, I suggest that you read them in the following order:_

_22 Caliber_

_Trigger Happy 23 _

_Morelli's Argument 23.5_

_Ranger 23.75_

_Threatening 24_

_Fixation 25_

_Security 26_

_Sneaky 27_

_Date Night at the Movies 27.1_

_Meeting Maria 27.2_

_The Intervention 27.3_

_Envious 28_

_Dickie's Demise 28.1_

_Mob Matters 28.2_

_Altercation at Giovichinni's 28.3_

_Numbskull 29_

_Toxic 30_

_Obit 31_

_Tamper 32_

_Theft 33_

_Forced 34_

_In recognition of the fact that I'm a binge reader and don't personally like to wait for updates, I will try to post twice daily, barring unseen life events._

_Reviews, as always, are greatly appreciated. I have a few people who regularly review for me, and I'd like to thank you for that. Your reviews have given me the confidence to write another story. I appreciate all reviews and try to respond to each and every one. Please note that I cannot respond to reviews that have been posted by guests. _

_Thank you for reading my story. I hope you enjoy it!_

_~ Sarah ~_

**Chapter One**

The technician adjusted the wand as she pressed down on my belly. "Do you want to know the sex of the baby?" she said.

I looked at Ranger and smiled, and he grabbed hold of my hand as he looked down at me and smiled back, then stared in fascination at the image on the screen. "Yes", he said, "we'd like to know."

My name was Stephanie Plum, and I was twenty weeks pregnant. My soon-to-be husband, Ricardo Carlos Manoso, also known as Ranger, was the father, and although I was excited about the baby, I think that Ranger was even more so. We had never wanted to have a baby, but sometimes life had a way of surprising you. Despite using birth control diligently, we became pregnant anyway. I told Ranger that he had supersperm, and that made sense because he was the closest thing to a superhero that I had ever met.

Ranger figured out that I was pregnant when I was five weeks along. I didn't have a clue until that point, and I hardly believed it when he suggested it to me. But Ranger bought me some tests and I tried them all, and found out that the different tests agreed – I was pregnant. We decided not to tell anyone at first, which was a good thing. I almost lost the baby a few times, and I would have been devastated to have to deal with my own emotions at the same time as having to deal with the concerned comments from those around me. People knew now, but that made sense. I was showing and wouldn't have been able to keep it a secret even if I had wanted to.

Ranger and I were due to be married in another week. That was another thing that we were keeping quiet. While we both wanted to shout it out to the world, Ranger had made some enemies in his past and he was afraid that I could be hurt in revenge for things that he had done. As he said, I was his Achilles' heel and he would do anything to ensure my safety. Now that we were having a baby, that feeling of wanting to protect me had just gotten stronger. Because of this, we were getting married but not signing the register or making it official with the government. We were having what was known as a commitment ceremony. It had the same wording and same rituals associated with a recognized marriage. However, with our marriage it would just be recognized by God without the paperwork signed. It made sense to me. I didn't care about the paperwork but I did want the words said in front of God and the rings blessed by the officiant.

Ranger is the owner of Rangeman, an elite security firm that does all things security-wise. You name it, and Rangeman had probably done it once. Our client list ranged from the military to the CIA, FBI, DEA, Secret Service and so on down to the local police departments, and from international corporations down to Mom and Pop businesses who wanted to hire the best in security services.

I worked for Ranger, and was responsible for the research department. A year ago, the research that was done only addressed our own internal needs and the research work could be completed by one person. Since then, we have grown the department astronomically, and had brought a boatload of business to Rangeman with our research abilities. Now, with all the additional work we have brought to the company, we were constantly overworked. Up until a month ago, there were just two staff and myself working the research desk and every day we were falling more and more behind. We were each working fifteen-hour days, and we couldn't keep up. Ranger told me that we would hire more people and, since I calculated that I would need six people to do the work, Ranger encouraged me to hire four and a half people so that there would be six and a half to keep up while I was on mat leave in another four-and-a-bit months. With having the seven and a half people currently and a whole lot more overtime, we were starting to get caught up on our backlog. I dreamed of the day we were caught up completely.

All research was done using an in-house designed search engine called In-Spect. It was incredibly invasive and could find out things about you that you weren't even aware of. I know. I had run my name through the search engines once and had learned all sorts of things about myself. In fact, I had checked some of the data with my mother and she didn't know either. A lot of the information found out by In-Spect was superfluous. After all, who cared about the date you received your first vaccination? However, some of the information was valuable and told a lot about the person. For example, someone who received often-repeated speeding tickets might be reckless in their lives, and someone who was arrested for driving under the influence might be irresponsible, and someone who received a parking ticket near the scene of a murder at the time the murder occurred may just have been the person who did the murder. Add in their financial history, their medical history, their academic history and their employment history on top of their previous convictions, and you had a pretty good idea of what the person was like. When that information had all been accumulated, In-Spect then looked at the social history – what their personalities were like, the things that they liked to do and who was talked about on their social media. Between all the different avenues that were explored, In-Spect could create a comprehensive dossier on anyone.

So Ranger had made enemies in his job as a security specialist, but those enemies weren't the ones that Ranger was worried about. Ranger, in a previous life, had been a Ranger in the US Army, and when he was there he had been part of the team that had transported the deceased Osama bin Laden to the US ship for burial at sea. The al-Qaeda didn't like this fact, and had targeted all members of the SEAL team who killed bin Laden as well as the Ranger team that transported him, and after they had killed some of his team members the government had erased all association of those involved with the mission. Ranger had asked them to go a step farther and create an alternate identity for him. When I ran Ranger's name through the In-Spect program, it came up with someone who didn't exist. This alternate identity said that he was a college graduate who had started his own business. It didn't recognize his army experience, nor did it talk of his security experience. Ranger had changed everything, from his work history to his Social Security number. Since his alternate identity had been created, Ranger had tried to live completely off the grid. He was recognized as a business owner, but everything was done through the business. We lived in the office building. His credit cards were all company cards. His phone was registered to the company. Even his cars were all company cars. He was an almost-impossible person to track.

It wasn't only Ranger's association with the bin Laden mission that had him concerned about his personal security. He was also part owner and a former employee of PMC – Private Military Contractors – a company of mercenaries that worked a lot with the military, the CIA, the DEA, and their equivalents from a variety of countries. They were known as being the best of the best and did all the jobs deemed impossible by the various governments. Ranger was the preeminent unit commander in the world for leading teams into enemy territory, and for doing things like reconnaissance, extractions of assets and elimination of targets. With his Hispanic looks and fluency in Spanish, he was a natural to work in the War on Drugs and had shut down many drug lords' operations. So, in addition to the al-Qaeda targeting him, he had several drug lords gunning for him as well.

Ranger felt very strongly that he was in danger but, more importantly, he felt that I was in danger just by my association with him. In fact, he was so worried about it that he almost didn't get together with me. He eventually decided that I would be safe with a few security measures in place. For one, he got me a watch with a tracking device and a panic button on it. The watch was monitored 24/7 by the control room at Rangeman, and I could press the panic button at any time and a Rangeman team would come running. Unfortunately, I'd had to use that feature a few times in the eight months since I'd had the watch. Secondly, Ranger leased me a car to drive. It was a popular model and colour and was relatively indistinguishable from many other cars on the road. That car was also tracked. It let me blend in with all the other drivers out there. The only way that I could be more safe would be for Ranger to microchip me, but luckily that was a little too Hollywood even for Ranger.

The use of a vehicle that let me blend in was important. Blending in, Ranger thought, was essential. For this reason, he was glad that I didn't have any tattoos or that I didn't dye my hair weird and wild colors. He was glad I conducted myself in a way that didn't stand out, and he encouraged me to always do so.

To help with my own personal security, Ranger had taught me a lot. He taught me how to be vigilant and always sit with my back to the wall, and he taught me how to shoot and how to protect myself. They were all important lessons, but they were more important than just in protecting myself from Ranger's enemies. I had made a few of my own as well. My job with Ranger was not my only job. I was also a bounty hunter, someone that went out and captured all those people who skipped going to court. When someone was arrested, they were put in jail until their court date. However, jails were full of prisoners and so judges often gave them the choice to pay a cash bond to the courts to ensure that they would show up on their hearing date. This money would be returned to the felon when they showed up to court.

Most accused, however, didn't have the cash to pay their bond but, since jails weren't nice places were you had to poop in front of everyone when you had to use the toilet, felons generally didn't want to wait in jail for their court date. That's where a bondsman came in. The bondsman, for the price of fifteen percent of the bond and the donation of some collateral, would pony up the money to let the accused roam free. When the accused returned to court for their hearing, the money was returned to the bondsman and the collateral was returned to the accused. The fifteen percent was retained by the bondsman.

Sometimes, however, the accused either forgot their court date or purposely decided not to go. This made the bondsman unhappy, as without that money returned from the courts he could not lend it to another client and therefore earn another fifteen percent. That's where I came in. I was sent out to capture the felon and bring them back to the system. For this I was paid ten percent of the price of the bond, and the bondsman kept the remaining five percent as an administration fee. When the accused was returned to the system, the money was returned to the bondsman and the whole process started again – but this time the bail was set at a higher amount. Some people went through the system many times before they couldn't afford to do anything other than attend their hearing.

However, many felons were unhappy about being brought in and often took it out on me. I had been punched, bitten, stabbed, shot, kidnapped and firebombed all in the line of duty, and because of this, Ranger and I had decided that it would be better for me and our unborn baby to just focus on my job as a researcher. Instead, I created the capture plans and had some of the Rangeman patrol guys pick up the skips. It was a good system that was working well for us. While I missed being out and about and capturing skips, the patrol guys were so happy about their new duties that Hal had to make sure that no one team was given more of a chance to pick up skips than another when he was setting the schedules.

We had a number of departments in Rangeman. In addition to my research department, we had cybersecurity, investigative services, personal security – otherwise known as bodyguards – onsite security – otherwise known as security guards – system designers and system installers. Our biggest department, however, were the Emergency Response Teams. Hal was the head of the teams and, when the teams weren't on call, they acted as patrol and monitoring staff. All formerly special operations staff in the military, they had the ability to do everything from hostage negotiation to munitions to extractions to attacks. There were two teams currently, and each team had a team lead, a sniper, a communications person, a medic and a bomb expert, amongst other skills. They were highly trained operatives and were the best trained staff outside the military. We were planning on increasing the number of teams to four in another year.

The only reason we didn't have four teams now was because of a lack of space. Ranger required each member to have a ten-minute response time from call-out to mobilization and to ensure that was possible both after hours as well as during the day, Ranger provided small efficiency apartments for each ERT member. There were only two floors of apartments, or twenty apartments divided into two floors, and each floor of ten apartments represented one Emergency Response Team.

However, with Ranger's plans to increase the number of ERTs to four, he planned on building a new residence to house the influx of staff. This new building would contain four floors of six hundred and fifty-square foot apartments for each of the ERTs; a two-story six hundred and fifty-square foot apartment for Hal, head of the ERTs; as well as a three thousand-square foot apartment for Ella and Luis, our housekeeper and her custodian husband; another three thousand-square foot apartment for Tank, our Vice-President of Operations; and a seven thousand-square foot penthouse apartment for Ranger and me. It was double the size of our current apartment. It would be massive and the largest home that I had ever seen.

On the main floor of the building would be a large gym in addition to the lobby and below the gym were to be change rooms and a five-lane twenty-five yard pool. The gym would have all the regular equipment, a three-story climbing wall, and a couple of rooms for lessons. There was to be a hot tub beside the pool for those who wanted to soak sore muscles. Three parking levels were to be built below the gym and pool facilities.

Our current office building was a mixture of both residences and office space and, when the residences all moved to the new tower, our current building would just house offices. The first floor would hold conference rooms, the administrative and support services would expand from one floor to two. Operations would also expand from one floor to two. Ella's and Luis's apartment would become a staff lounge and cafeteria and Ranger's and my current apartment, in the penthouse, would become a guest suite for dignitaries and other security-conscious visitors.

Our current apartment was a luxurious three-plus-one bedroom apartment. It was the nicest home that I had ever seen. Our new apartment was going to be better.

The building wasn't the only thing growing in the company. The business itself was growing astronomically. We had become the premier security company for high-end security services. We had designed the system used by MoMA in New York, the CURE Stadium here in Trenton, and the revamped system used by the White House, among others. Our services were in demand by more than just people in Trenton. We had people clamoring to use our services from all over the eastern seaboard and, because of that, Ranger had decided to buy another security company and expand our operations. Our existing company offered services in Miami and Trenton. The company we were buying out had offices in Atlanta, Boston, Raleigh, Nashville and Little Rock, and was just as profitable a company as our own. Ranger's company was doing well and regularly netted in the tens of millions of dollars each year. When we added Wes's company, Rangeman would be netting almost a hundred and fifty million a year. Ranger was turning a lot of that profit back into the company and growing the company's investment portfolio. Through wise management, exceptional service, a great product and talented staff, Ranger's company had grown from just himself and one other person a few years ago to over four hundred staff today. When we added Wes's company, we'd have about fourteen hundred staff members.

Ranger was signing the papers to buy out Wes's company in another week. Ranger and I were going to Atlanta personally to purchase the company. It was actually going to be our honeymoon. In another five days we were getting married. After the ceremony, we were planning on going down to the Miami office to spend a couple of days with the staff there, and from Miami fly to Atlanta to purchase Pearl Security and to spend some time with Ranger's friend, before flying home again.

Together, Ranger and I felt like we had the world by its tail. Everything was falling into place for the two of us. It was an exciting time in our lives, and we were glad that we were together on this ride.

I smiled at the technician. "Yes", I said. "We want to know the sex."

The technician smiled. "She is being particularly cooperative and showing us that she's a little girl. Can you see her sucking her thumb?" Ranger and I watched, entranced, as she kicked and moved. "Have you picked out names yet?"

"Yes", I said. "Her name will be Tia Rose."

"That's beautiful", said the technician with a smile. "I can tell already that she'll be a beautiful little girl. The two of you will make wonderful parents." She let us watch a few minutes more as the doctor came in and checked the baby's development and looked at the measurements, then removed the wand and handed Ranger a tissue so that he could wipe off my tummy. She smiled. "Congratulations, Mom and Dad. In another twenty weeks you'll be the parents of a healthy baby girl."

"You can't see any problems with the baby?" said Ranger. He was concerned. About two months ago I had been shot – twice. Luckily I had been wearing a bulletproof jacket both times, but I'd had two broken ribs and several bone bruises which were just now feeling like they had healed. Ranger had been concerned that the shots had affected the baby more than had been shown on the ultrasounds that we'd had done at that time.

"Not at all", said the doctor. "From everything that I can see, she looks perfectly healthy."

Ranger and I both breathed a sigh of relief.

"I'll get these results off to your obstetrician", said the doctor. "When is your next appointment with him?" She handed us a CD of the imaging results.

"On Friday", I said.

"That's two days away", said the doctor. "He'll definitely have the results by then."

I smiled as Ranger helped me sit up, and as he steadied me as I stood again. We shook the doctor's and the technician's hands and left the room. As I did up my coat and walked with Ranger out into the cold, he captured my hand in his. He lifted it to kiss my knuckles. "We're having a baby girl", he said. His voice was full of awe.

I smiled. "We are."

"In five months, we'll be having a beautiful little girl."

I grinned. The baby seemed real to me since I could feel her kicking and moving. However, Ranger hadn't felt her yet – we had tried several times – and the only indication for him that there was a live person in there was with the images on the ultrasound. I was entranced by the pictures on the screen, but I think Ranger was even more so.

"Let's go baby clothes shopping", said Ranger.

"Do you have time? I know how busy you are."

Ranger laughed. "Do you think that I'd be able to concentrate on work, when all I want to do is get ready for the baby?"

I grinned. I felt exactly the same way.


	2. Chapter 2

Ranger and I had intended to go shopping for the baby's things about three weeks before, but the Comstock Street Slayers had a different idea. The brutal gang was mad that I was looking into a case for the Trenton Police Department where officers were tampering with evidence so that the Slayers wouldn't kill them or their loved ones. The Slayers had forced dozens of cases to be thrown out of court and had developed an attitude that they were above the law. Already a vicious gang, they had become more so.

The TPD asked me to look into the people involved to try to discover something they could use to explain the disappearing evidence. I found the person who was behind the evidence tampering, and I discovered the reason why he was tampering with the evidence. However, the Slayers found out that I was investigating them and they threatened me. They tried to kill me once and, when I was going shopping for baby clothes with Ranger, they threatened to kill me again – and kill Ranger at the same time. Ranger saved me, but in the resulting melee one of the Slayers fired at Ranger and hit the leader of the Slayers instead. Unfortunately, the gangbanger died at the scene and, afterwards, Ranger and I didn't feel like clothes shopping any longer.

"I would love to go shopping", I said. "Perhaps we could also look at baby furniture."

"We could buy you more maternity clothes as well", said Ranger. "You only have four pairs of pants, and you have a number of court appearances coming up that you will need court clothes for. You only have one dress and a skirt suit and a pair of dress pants that are suitable."

"Isn't that enough?"

"Not if you have to go multiple days in a row", said Ranger.

"This sounds like it will be an expensive shopping trip."

Ranger smiled. "That's okay. They are all things that we need."

Ranger opened the door of the Cayenne for me. When I was settled in the seat and was putting my seatbelt on, Ranger shut the door softly and crossed in front of the hood to slide into his seat. He started up the car, let it warm up for a moment, and left the parking lot. "I guess we should go to the mall first", said Ranger.

"I was thinking we should go to Costco", I said. "I've shopped there for Val's kids before, and their clothes are priced well and are often cute."

"I don't have a membership", said Ranger.

I smiled. "That's okay. I do." I shivered slightly, and Ranger noticed. He turned up the heat, but by the time the car had warmed up we had arrived at Costco.

I dug out my membership card from my wallet, and Ranger and I walked together into the warehouse. Ranger told me that he'd never been before, and he looked around himself with a wide-eyed wonder, amazed at the size of the store and everything they had for sale. I didn't think he had ever seen a store that was as large as Costco, and he wasn't prepared for things being sold off skids rather than from a display on a shelf. "How do they sell all this stuff?" he said. "They have hundreds of thermal bottles at the entrance to the store, for example. How would they ever sell that many thermal bottles?"

I laughed. "Look at how many people are in the store – and this is a quiet time. There are often a hundred people just waiting in line to cash out on the weekend. It's a zoo when families come in to stock up for the week. If just a portion of those people buy thermal bottles, Costco will need to purchase another shipment."

Ranger stopped and stared at me in shock.

I guided him past the featured items at the entrance towards the clothing section, and on the way Ranger stopped and inspected the diamond jewelry on display. He looked at me, and then looked at the display. He pointed out the nicest diamond necklace that I had ever seen. It was simple – a small floral love knot made out of white gold and enhanced with tiny diamonds and a larger diamond in the center. "Do you like that one?" he said. "It looks a little like a rose."

"I think it's the prettiest necklace I have ever seen", I said. "Who were you thinking of getting it for?"

"You", said Ranger with a smile. "We need to do something to celebrate finding out that our peanut is a little girl."

"That's way too expensive."

Ranger laughed. "Babe."

"Seriously, Ranger, it's far too expensive."

Ranger smiled. "Babe, you know how much I earn. I told you how much when we opened our joint bank accounts two weeks ago. You know I can afford this."

"What happens if I lose it?"

"We'll get it insured", he said. "That's what insurance is for."

I looked at the necklace longingly, and then I looked at Ranger and shook my head. He smiled and called over a salesperson anyway.

A few minutes later, Ranger had put the necklace on me and the salesperson gave me a mirror to look at myself. I absolutely loved it, but I didn't want to tell Ranger that. I felt embarrassed that he was spending so much money on me.

Ranger looked at me, and I guess he could tell how much I liked it by the look on my face. He smiled and kissed me, then turned to the salesperson. "We'll wear it out of the store", he said.

"Very good", she said as she locked up the case again.

"Are you sure?" I said.

"The only thing more beautiful than that necklace is you", said Ranger. "That necklace was made for you. Enjoy it."

"I don't think I will ever want to take it off."

Ranger thought about smiling. "So if I bought you another necklace?"

I laughed. "It would be impossible for me to like another necklace as much as I like this one. I'm afraid I'm not much of a girly-girl. I'm not someone who changes my jewelry every day. I have my favorites and don't like to change them. I love this necklace and I can tell you right now that I won't want to take it off, even for a new necklace."

Ranger kissed me. "I'm glad you like it", he said. He turned to the saleswoman and paid for the necklace, and I put the jewelry box in my purse. He looked at me and smiled. "Now to buy baby clothes?"

I laughed, grabbed his hand and tugged him to the clothing aisle. On the way, he discovered the home linens aisle, and he pushed the cart down it. He stopped at a display of towels. "Don't you think those dark gray towels will look good in our new bathroom?" he said. He was obviously remembering the story board I had created with the paint samples for the various rooms in the new apartment. I had selected a creamy pale sand for the walls in our bedroom, with warm white and graphite accents in the bed linens and furnishings. For the master ensuite I had suggested tall white wainscoting going up two-thirds of the wall and a graphite wall color on the drywall above.

"We won't be furnishing our new place for another year", I said. "There is no point in buying the towels now."

Ranger loaded eight bath towels, four hand towels and four facecloths into the cart.

"Ranger!"

"You don't know if these things will still be here when we are ready to buy them for our place, and you have to admit that they are perfect."

"But do we need so many?" I sighed, and he looked very pleased with himself. He walked a few steps further and found a skid of king-sized duvet and sham covers that were white with tan piping. Included in the package was a set of matching sheets. "Do you like these?" he said. "They are Egyptian cotton and are an eighteen hundred thread count. Is that good?"

I sighed again, but Ranger was right. They were perfect and they might not be there when we wanted to buy them. We did have to get them while we could. "That is an excellent thread count", I said. "It means that they will be soft and durable."

Ranger put a package into the cart.

Next went in a textured quilt in a tan to match the piping in the duvet cover. Included in the quilt package were three euro sham covers. I loved it and could just see our bed made up. It would look beautiful.

I walked quickly through the rest of the aisle before Ranger found more to purchase. When we had escaped without further purchases, I led Ranger to the clothing section. He stopped to look at all the women's clothes. He held up a dress. "This would look good on you", he said.

"I'm pregnant", I said. "Nothing looks good on me."

"You're pregnant. Everything looks good on you", said Ranger. But he thankfully put the dress back.

"I swear, it's like you've never been shopping before."

Ranger looked abashed. "It's something I avoid as much as possible. In the last three years, the only times I have gone shopping were when I commissioned your ring to be made, and when I went shopping for your Christmas gifts. Your birthday gift I got online, so I have done very little in-person shopping. Ella does most of my shopping for me."

"So your current apartment?"

"Decorated by Ella and the decorator. Ella was the one that did the final selection of things. The only things I specified were a large closet with a hidden gun cabinet, and a large bathroom with an oversized shower. Ella made sure those things were included, but she chose all the things from paint color to furnishings."

"She did a good job."

"I like it. It's a comfortable place to live."

I smiled, and as Ranger looked at a selection of shoes and asked me what size I was, I directed the cart to a table of sleepers and onesies. Ranger followed me and picked up a tiny pale pink long-sleeved shirt with a matching cream corduroy jumper and a cream cardigan. The jumper had tiny rosebuds printed on it, and the cardigan had tiny rosebuds embroidered around the collar. He handed it to me and I checked the size. It was six months to nine months, so I added it to the cart. I put in a couple of bodysuits that were designed to look like dresses, and they came with matching cardigans. Ranger put in a package of bibs and he found some soft shoes that would keep our little girl's feet warm. He threw those in the cart.

After buying one of every unisex and every baby girl outfit, we headed to the sleeper section. We bought sleepers with teddy bears, sleepers with bunnies, sleepers with koalas, sleepers with puppies, sleepers with kitties and, since the prices were good, we bought sleepers with hearts and sleepers with flowers on them as well. By the time we had finished shopping, Ranger had decided that shopping at Costco was one of his favorite things to do.


	3. Chapter 3

After loading up our car at Costco, Ranger headed towards the maternity wear store. I would have only selected a few things, but Ranger was on a roll and wanted to buy me more things that I had selected. I had picked out two dresses and two blouses that would be suitable to wear to court. Ranger picked out four more pairs of pants, three more dresses on top of the two that I had selected, and five blouses, two blazers, three cardigans, two pullovers, and six t-shirts. When I protested, he ignored me. "They look good on you", he said, and he pulled out his wallet to pay for them. I stared at him, stupefied, and he smiled with a pleased look on his face. "Babe, I like buying things for you."

"But Ranger, it's a lot of money for things that I will only be wearing for a year at most, assuming that I'll get pregnant again some time."

Ranger picked up the bags of clothes and walked out of the store. I followed him. As we got into the car, he said, "I'd like to go into Princeton to see the big baby store there, but I think you've had enough for today." I nodded. He was right. I'd had enough of spending money. "I think, instead, we should home and look at our household budget."

"Our household budget?"

"We should set one. I have one that I used for myself prior to getting together with you, but it will need to be revised now that you are with me and that we are having a baby. Perhaps we can do that work together this afternoon."

"I don't need to know your budget."

"Babe, this is _our_ budget, not _my_ budget, and we should together devise a plan for how we spend our money. Originally, I wanted to cover everything for the family and house, and have you keep your salary. You said you didn't want that and that's why we opened up a joint account. Now both of our salaries are going into the joint account. However, we should have a plan for how we spend our money, how we save our money, and where our money should go. Did you never have a household budget for yourself before?"

"No. I just spent what I had to and lived off credit when I didn't have the money to pay for essentials."

"That worked for you, but when you have two people drawing from the account that loosey-goosey method of money management doesn't work as well."

"So you think we should devise a budget?"

"I grew up in a house that was responsible for a restaurant, and like with the restaurant my parents had a household budget. It let them get ahead and develop enough savings that they could invest in other companies. That household budget is important. My parents started teaching us kids how to create a budget when we were quite young. By following those practices, I've been able to protect my savings and make sure that I have the money to do things like build the new office building. Yes, I have a loan from the bank. However, that is a construction loan and we only pay for the money we take out. It works like a line of credit and is something I hope to pay off with our corporate savings when the construction is completed. That is why, when I finished meeting with the construction company and we had our initial budget worked out, I found that we wouldn't need to borrow your money or my money to fund the build. We'd be able to do it all through the corporate savings."

"I feel bad knowing that I am bringing so much less to this marriage than you. We'll be basically living on your salary. The only thing my salary will go towards is paying for the nanny. That will wipe it all out." Ranger and I, because of that concern over our personal safety, had decided to hire a nanny to take care of our baby rather than take the baby to a daycare. The person we had selected to be our nanny was also a bodyguard, and since she was a very loving person who loved children we thought she'd do well in the role. To prepare herself for the job as our nanny, she was taking an early childhood education course. Amelia was greatly enjoying the coursework and looking forward to when the baby was born.

The Director of Personal Security, Dave, was not very happy when he realized that we were taking one of his best bodyguards and turning her into our personal bodyguard. However, when he realized that she was being hired by us and that we were paying the going rate, he didn't mind about us seconding her any longer. On Amelia's side, she was happy to have the opportunity to look after kids. Apparently it had been her lifelong dream to do so.

"Maybe it doesn't make sense for me to work", I said sadly as I thought about how much money I was costing Ranger to have me be employed.

"That's certainly your choice", said Ranger. "However, I suspect that, knowing you, you would be desperately unhappy not being able to go out to work. That's okay. It doesn't mean that you love your kids any less. I'm happy paying a premium to have a qualified nanny look after our baby, and I think Amelia will be a good addition to our family. We have to do what works for both you and the baby." He paused. "Besides, I don't want to lose you as a researcher. Your department is doing good things, and is achieving potential that I didn't even know was there. I'd prefer to see it continue."

We got to the Rangeman building a few minutes later and loaded up on the various bags and boxes of clothing and house linens. Ranger carried the heaping box up, and I carried the rest of the bags. Although our arms were full, we were able to do it all in one trip. I personally considered that a miracle. We had bought a lot of stuff.

When we finished stashing our purchases away in closets, Ranger made a pot of peppermint tea as I took the tags off the clothes and put them in the wash. I always hated wearing clothes that hadn't been washed. When I had been a child I had done so and had an allergic reaction to the sizing in the fabric. The result was a lot of itchy hives and a visit to the emergency room when my tongue started to swell. I had never worn clothes without washing them first since. Even my dry clean-only clothing I had cleaned prior to wearing it.

By the time I finished taking off the tags, the peppermint tea was ready. I divided the clothes into a dark pile and light pile so that it was ready for Ella to wash, and walked through to the kitchen. Ranger had gotten out his laptop and was clicking into a spreadsheet. He set the computer up on the breakfast bar so that we could both see it, and he poured the tea and put out a bowl of fresh strawberries for us to munch on while we had our tea. As always, Ranger was determined to make sure my blood sugar didn't get too low. He felt that being pregnant would make me more sensitive to blood sugar changes. I don't know if he was right, but since I was hungry I wasn't going to complain.

I took a strawberry and savored its sweetness, then looked at the spreadsheet. I scrolled down. Ranger had included a category for everything that I could think of and then some. I looked at him, surprised. I often forgot that he was a business-savvy as he was. I was so used to seeing him as a security specialist that I forgot that he was a businessman as well.

"Can you think of any category that I've missed?" said Ranger.

"No", I said. "I think you got everything except childcare." I couldn't imagine anything else that we could ever spend money on.

"This budget will change from my budget into a household budget", said Ranger. He copied the information into a new file and started adapting it. With my help, he put in my salary and added a category for childcare. He put in what we'd be paying for Amelia's services, increased the other categories to account for the additional number of people in the household, and came up with a final number that we'd be saving each year. I was disappointed to see how much less it was compared to how much Ranger was saving when it was just him, and I told him how bad I felt about decreasing his savings.

Ranger smiled. "When we take over Wes' operation, I will be earning much more in dividends. Right now, I have my regular salary, and then I also earn dividends for both the Miami and the Trenton operations. Wes's company is just as successful as mine and each location nets about thirty million dollars per year. With Wes's companies, I'll be adding about a hundred million in net earnings each year so that, even though I only take ten percent of the net as dividends, it equals out to a much larger paycheck. We'll be able to save quite a bit of our salary, as well as increase the amount of money that we can donate."

"You donate twenty-five percent of your salary after taxes?"

"I do. Donation is important to me. In addition to my personal donation, my company also donates ten percent of its revenues. Forty percent of that goes to local kids programs to help them get off the street. Ase here in Trenton provides afterschool programming for kids. In Miami there isn't a similar program so we donate the money to Boys and Girls Clubs. I would like to support other youth programs in the cities that Wes operates in."

"I knew you earned a lot from what you told me when we opened up the joint accounts, but there is nothing like seeing it in black and white, is there?"

"No. Seeing the numbers put into a budget makes it seem more real."

"You're rich."

Ranger smiled with satisfaction. "Yeah, I am", he said.

"I thought that you said that things would be a little tight as we buy Wes's operation."

"Compared to now, they will be. I won't be taking as much of a dividend when we are paying off the purchase of his company. I figure it will take me about three years to pay off the purchase."

"It will take you only three years to pay off a two-hundred million dollar company?"

"That's true. If we work at it, we might be able to do it in two."

I stared at him, my mouth hanging open.

"Babe, we earn as much as some of the other full-security companies that are out there. On average, a full-security company like what Wes and I have earns approximately thirty million per location. There is a lot of money in security if you do a good job, and we pride ourselves in being some of the best."

"If you earn that much in net revenues, I'm surprised that you haven't bought out more small security companies."

"I've thought of it, but it is a bit difficult to find the companies that provide the same services as we do. Tank and I have always been concerned with quality control as well. We want to make sure that our quality remains with an expansion, and I've always been a little hesitant about adding on companies because of that. However, if we want to grow our business it looks like expansion is the next step. Buying out Wes is the perfect option as it gives us a good quality product right from the get-go."

"Is Wes happy that you are purchasing the company?"

"Yes, he is. That's why he is giving it to us at such a good price."

"Two hundred million is a good price?"

Ranger laughed. "Knowing that his company is earning over one hundred million a year, then yes. Two hundred million is a great price."

"He'll be rich as well."

"He already is. Whereas I take ten percent of the dividends for myself from my company, he takes fifty percent. It means that the company has less in investments, which makes it cost less as a company than my company would. He also is renting space rather than owning his own buildings like I do. One of the first things that we are planning on doing after we finish paying off the purchase is to build our own buildings in his cities. It just makes sense."

"Build instead of purchasing space?"

"I want the safety features and training facilities built into the building. There aren't too many existing buildings with bulletproof glass, a shooting range, and a complete gym, let alone the cybersecurity measures that need to be in place."

"I can see that. Do you own your own building in Miami as well?"

Ranger nodded. "As I said, it just makes sense."

"Wow."

"I guess what I'm saying is that, even though we are reducing my income with the purchase of Pearl Security and even though we will have to be a bit careful, we won't be struggling. And even though we'll have to be a bit careful, we'll be able to do everything that I suspect that we'll want to do with the exception of buying another company. For that, we'll have to wait a couple of years."

"Do you want to own a number of locations?"

Ranger paused and thought about that. "I don't know", he said. "While I like the idea in theory, I'm not sure if we'll be able to carry it off in practice. Wes said he was having the same problem, but that he felt that I could take his company to the next level. He said there were people who were good at managing and growing small businesses, and there were people who could also manage medium-sized and larger businesses. He said that there weren't too many who could do both, and he was a good small business owner but wasn't good at managing a company that was on the larger side. He said that, just judging by the kind of person I was and our relative success, I would do much better at managing a larger company. He said that I was always better at visioning and creating company-wide goals. In talking to him, I have found that he hasn't done anything with setting a corporate vision and mandate."

"You've had that in place at Rangeman since you started."

"I had read a lot about growing your business when I was first getting established and I incorporated many of those ideas. A corporate vision and mission statement was one of the things that the books recommended."

I looked at his spreadsheet again. "I can hardly imagine numbers this large."

Ranger laughed. "If you think this spreadsheet is bad, you should see the corporate one. We record it all in thousands rather than in the actual dollar figures, just because it is otherwise too unwieldy to comprehend."

"I can imagine that it would be difficult, especially with the gross income stream being so much."

"Yes. I'm just glad that I'm not an accountant and I don't have to manage the expenses and income. That is too much accounting for me."

I laughed, but I agreed with him completely.


	4. Chapter 4

With Ranger and me taking time out that afternoon for the shopping and doing the financial work, we both had things to do for the office that evening. Ranger put the final touches on the contract for the purchase of Wes's company, and I finished up the capture plans for Les Sebring's company. He had sent us six skips the day before, and I hadn't had a chance to create the capture plans. I was trying to stay up to date on them. I understood that it was bad for the bonds offices when the skips were in the wind.

Originally, I had only done the capture plans for Vincent Plum's Bail Bonds office, the bondsman that I worked for. However, Sales heard about what I was doing and they approached another bail bonds office in Trenton. Les Sebring was impressed with what we could do and the speed that we could do it in, and he let his bounty hunter go and hired us on. Sales decided that they had a good product to market, and they started to promote the service. We now had five bail bonds offices that used our capture plans, and three bonds offices that used our patrol guys to pick up the skips. The only reason we didn't also use our patrol guys for the other two was because they were located in other cities and our patrol guys didn't work there.

As I got ready for bed, I said to Ranger, "are Julie and Rachel and Ron arriving in the afternoon on Friday?" Julie was Ranger's thirteen-year old daughter from his previous marriage, Rachel was his ex and Ron was her new husband. Ranger got along well with both Rachel and Ron and, although he loved Julie, he said he didn't know her well. After all, she lived in Miami and he lived in Trenton, so he didn't get to see her very often. I was trying to change that, a fact that Julie seemed to be appreciating. She may not have been close to Ranger, but it didn't mean that she didn't care for him.

"Yes", said Ranger. "They are arriving at four, and will go directly to my parents for the family meal. They will then spend the weekend with us, attend our wedding on Monday, and fly home again on Tuesday." We were having a small wedding with just immediate family and a couple of close friends invited. We didn't want a big do. Several of Ranger's family were unhappy about not being invited, so Ranger's mom arranged for a big family celebration. There would be close to a hundred people there, and I was thankful that they weren't all going to be invited to the wedding. Ranger wasn't the only person who had been married in the past. I'd had a big wedding the first time around, and had hated it. This wedding, with less than thirty people invited, was far more my speed.

"Did you confirm our booking for the flight so that we can travel back with Julie and Rachel and Ron?"

Ranger smiled. "I did. Rachel was really excited. She said she had never flown first class before."

"Ella washed the bedding so that it was nice and fresh", I said, "and Vanessa is coming to clean on Friday so that the apartment will be in a good condition." Ella was our housekeeper and did all our laundry and cooked dinners for us. She used to cook breakfasts for us and clean our apartment as well as make food for the staff, but with the growth in the staff size it was becoming more challenging getting it all done. Ranger and I encouraged Ella to hire staff and offload some of her responsibilities. She elected having Vanessa do the cleaning, and she has hired someone to help her do the cooking. She was thrilled. Both people she selected to work with us were people she had met at church and who needed a job. The assistant chef had just moved to Trenton to look after an ailing parent; the cleaner was a single mom who was desperately trying to earn enough to support herself and her son. Ranger paid well, so even though we only needed her to come in three times a week, she was able to earn enough money that she wouldn't have to work a second job. I didn't know the chef, but I'd been impressed with Vanessa. She was a good person who was doing her best in a bad situation.

"Thanks for making the arrangements", said Ranger.

I smiled. I had never met Rachel or Ron more than in passing, but I had talked to them on the phone a few times. They seemed like nice people who were concerned about being the best parents that they could be to Julie. I could empathize. I wanted to be the best stepmother that I could be as well.

"Rachel said that Julie has been unhappy lately, and she doesn't know why. She said that Julie, however, is on edge and seems to be crying more frequently. She is scared to leave the house and hasn't been smiling as much as she normally does. She's normally such a happy kid."

"I know", I said. I thought about it for a moment. "Do you think someone is bullying her?"

"I don't know, but Rachel asked me to try to talk to her. She's worried that Julie is worried about coming back to Trenton because of the kidnapping."

"That doesn't make sense. She didn't seem worried about it at Thanksgiving or at Christmas."

"That's what Rachel said as well, and she said that she can't figure it out. She's hoping we'll help."

"I hope so. We'll certainly try our best. Just as long as she isn't unhappy about us marrying."

"I haven't seen any indication of that in her emails", said Ranger.

"Do you think that she's nervous about standing up at the front with us when we say our vows?"

The wedding we were having was to be a low-key one. We weren't having attendants, but I wanted Julie to be involved in the wedding. I asked her whether she would mind standing up with Ranger and me. Ranger was going to have her carry the rings, and she was going to hold my flowers when I was saying the vows. I had thought that she'd been thrilled to be included, and I was happy that our whole blended family would be together – Ranger, me, Julie and unborn Tia.

I had arranged for Julie and me to have flowers woven into our hair at the salon a couple of hours prior to the wedding. I was letting Julie decide on her own hairstyle, but I wanted mine in an updo. It wasn't something I could do on my own successfully, but I had always loved the look of them.

We were getting our hair done at three in the afternoon, but at one o'clock Julie, Rachel and I were getting our nails done. I had thought it would be nice to spend some time together with Rachel and Julie doing girl stuff, and nothing said bonding better than having manis and pedis done. I desperately wanted to create a good relationship with Rachel and Julie. I liked Julie immensely – she was a good kid and I would be a proud stepmom, and I thought having a good relationship with Rachel would prove to be important as time went on. To tell the truth, becoming a stepmom was a little daunting, especially because I didn't know Julie very well.

"I don't think that's the problem", said Ranger. "I don't know what it is, but I don't think our marriage is it."

I had first met Julie a couple of years before. In Ranger's travels he had come across someone who was so impressed by Ranger that he tried to take over Ranger's life. In doing so, he abducted Julie and brought her back to Trenton, and he started stalking me and trying to make Julie, me and him into a family. I purposely let myself get abducted so that I could protect Julie as much as possible. I didn't know, however, who was protecting whom. At the end of our imprisonment, Ranger walked into my apartment where Julie and I were being held to give himself up and Julie shot the imposter. Ranger's and my acts to try to save her, however, seemed to make an impression. Julie had decided that anyone who would be willing to take a bullet for her had to be a good person. She had always been a little standoffish with Ranger before then, but she had decided to become a loving daughter afterwards. It seemed to have bought an equal amount of goodwill towards me as well. Julie was far more accepting of me than I thought she might be.

I had worried that seeing me with her dad would bring up bad memories for her. However, Rachel had said that Julie was happy that I was with Ranger, and had said that I would work to protect him just as much as I worked to protect her. She said that she couldn't always be there to protect her father and that she was glad I was there to take her place. Julie, like her father, had a strong protective streak in her.

So I wanted to do whatever I could to create a friendly relationship with Rachel and Ron and Julie. I didn't want to be seen as the evil stepmom, and although I didn't think Rachel would ever badmouth me, I didn't want to give her a reason that would make it acceptable.

Hearing that Julie wasn't her normal effervescent-self worried me. A wave of anxiety washed over me as I cuddled down into the blankets, and as Ranger pulled me into him he felt the stiffness in my body. "What's wrong?" he asked quietly.

"Julie is a great kid, and I want to be the best stepmom possible."

"Julie already loves you", said Ranger. "When I talked to her on the phone last weekend, she was saying how happy she was that I was marrying you. Maybe more importantly, Rachel said that Julie said the same thing to her."

"I love Julie too. I'm grateful that she is going to be in our wedding."

"I think Rachel and Ron are grateful that we invited them."

"They have to be there. They are an important part of your life."

Ranger kissed the back of my neck, the money shot. "You are an important part of my life", he said. He kissed me again, and goosebumps rose on my arms and legs. Other parts of me were standing up and taking notice as well, and I moaned softly.

Ranger put his hand on my tummy and pulled me into him, and jumped. His hand flew off my belly and he started to laugh. "Was that Tia moving around?" he said.

I smiled and flipped over until I was facing him. I kissed him on his lips. "It was", I said. "She's been very active today."

"I felt her", he said.

I smiled. I was very glad that he could finally feel her.

He put his hands gently on my belly. "Hey, peanut. It's your daddy here. How are you doing in there?"

Tia gave a particularly strong kick, and I could see the slash of Ranger's teeth in the dark as he smiled. His voice full of awe, he said, "I think she recognizes my voice."

I kissed him on his cheek. "Of course she recognizes your voice. I like to imagine that she can sense my emotions as well, and if she can she would know that you are a good person, a safe person to love, and that you would do anything to protect her and love her. She would be able to feel my love for you, my trust in you, and my feeling of being safe in your arms."

Ranger moved down under the blankets, lifted my nightie, and kissed the swell of my belly. With his head where it was, it was giving me ideas, but Ranger didn't seem to be on the same wavelength. He was too entranced with the baby inside my tummy. He kept his hands on my stomach a little longer, but didn't feel anything else. "I think she's gone to sleep", I said.

"Sweet dreams, peanut", he said. He pulled himself up again and gathered me in his arms. He held me as though I was made of spun glass, and I felt cherished and loved. It wasn't as good as making love, but it was a close second. The last thing I heard as I was falling asleep was Ranger whisper, "I'll be a good dad, peanut. I'll protect you against the world and I'll be a good provider to you. That's my promise. I love you, peanut. I love you just as much as I love your mommy." He kissed me on the forehead.

"Love you too", I mumbled as I tumbled into sleep.

The next morning I woke as Ranger pulled himself out of the bed to go to the washroom and just like usual, I didn't have to go to the washroom until I heard Ranger peeing. By the time he had brushed his teeth and left the bathroom, I was dancing outside the ensuite. Ranger smiled as I ran into the bathroom. "Why didn't you use the powder room?" he said.

"I didn't realize you would be so long", I said. I pulled up my nightie and sat on the toilet, and gratefully sighed in relief as I emptied my bladder. I could hear Ranger chuckle from the dressing room as I stood up and flushed, and by the time I had washed my hands and brushed my teeth he had dressed in his workout clothes and put on his running shoes.

I walked out again and Ranger looked at me with a lightness in his eyes. "What are you planning on doing, babe? Are you going back to sleep?"

"I think I'm awake now", I said. "Since this is the last day in the office before we are off for the next week, I'd like a chance to go over the work assignments for everyone, and figure out if I could give any pointers to the new staff to help start them on their work."

"And maybe have a nap later today?"

I smiled. "I could. Is there a particular reason you want me to have a nap this afternoon?"

"Yes."

I smiled. I know what that meant, and I was already looking forward to it. I had missed it very much the night before.

"The baby needs her sleep and you need to look after her", he said. His face lightened in amusement and he smiled at the look of disappointment on my face. "Don't worry", he said, "I'll look after you as well."

I grinned, and Ranger laughed at me. He dropped a kiss on my nose, told me not to work too hard, and turned and left the apartment.

I started the shower and let it warm up as I pulled my nightie over my head and put it on the counter. I put a new blade in my razor, jumped in the shower, and shampooed, conditioned, washed and shaved. I had a long shower and luxuriated in the hot water. Shortly afterwards I got out and dried off, slathered on some of my favorite shea lotion, and sniffed the air appreciatively. Ranger had put it in my stocking last Christmas, and it was my favorite scent. I didn't tend to wear a lot of perfumes, but I did like wearing the body lotion. It was a more subtle scent, but it was so nice and clean-smelling that I liked wearing it.

I put on Ranger's housecoat, thankful that I had that option. My own wasn't large enough and my belly peeked through the join in the fabric. I'm not sure if it mattered though that my housecoat was too small. I much preferred to wear Ranger's. It smelled like him – clean and fresh – and wearing it was like being constantly hugged by Ranger, even when he wasn't there.

As I combed out my wet hair, I looked in the mirror and admired my necklace. It really was the prettiest pendant that I had ever seen. I loved the petite size, the symbolism behind the never-ending love knot, the sheer beauty of the stones and simple design. It was the kind of necklace that I could wear anywhere and with anything, and it wouldn't be out of place.

I turned on the blow dryer and blasted my hair until I was bored and decided that my hair was dry enough. I put the dryer away and pulled my hair back into a ponytail, put on a smudged line of eyeliner and two coats of mascara and some lip goo, walked into the closet and pulled out a dress. It was a sky-blue boucle shift dress with an empire waist, and I thought the necklace would fall just right on the neckline. I put on a pair of nylons and pulled the dress over my head. I was glad the material was soft and stretchy and didn't require me to do up any zippers at the back of me. With having a beach ball attached to my belly, I didn't feel particularly agile.

Since the dress had short sleeves, I added a navy blue blazer that Ranger had bought for me for Christmas, made the bed, and padded out to the kitchen. I put on the coffee pot to make myself a pot of decaf. Ranger had left a loaf of lemon poppyseed bread out on the counter overnight to defrost. He had made the bread on the weekend, and I was greatly looking forward to it.

I was lucky that Ranger liked to cook. I was a terrible cook myself. I had dreams where I could turn out appetizing five-course meals without breaking a sweat or reading a recipe book. However, whenever I tried I learned that my dreams were nightmares and, although I could attempt to cook a five-course meal, my meals would be anything other than appetizing. Morelli, an ex-boyfriend and my best friend not including Ranger, had a dog that ate everything. He ate the seat backs in the car. He ate furniture legs and pillows. He ate laundry – not all of it clean – and he ate carpeting, curtains and tools. He wouldn't, however, eat my cooking. While I had always thought of him as a dumb dog, when I saw him sniff my food and hang his head and whimper like I was punishing him, I had to question that thought. I knew that I certainly wouldn't have eaten that slop either.

My first husband used to tell me that I was a terrible cook. It was pretty well the only thing we agreed on. I quickly learned that, if I didn't want to get hit, it was better for me to heat up frozen dinners. Of course, I only got hit the once and it wasn't over a dinner, frozen or otherwise. It was over his infidelity with that tramp, Joyce Barnhardt.

But I wasn't a complete idiot. I knew to put the extra cheese on the frozen lasagna and the macaroni and cheese in the last ten minutes of cooking. I knew to put a baking tray underneath the foil pan of frozen dinner so that there was some stability when moving the foil pan around. And most of all, I knew by memory all the phone numbers for all the food available for delivery for all those times when I didn't leave enough time to cook a frozen food, or when we wanted something a little fresher than heating up a frozen meal.

Ranger told me that he was going to teach me how to cook. He said that I couldn't go through life not knowing the basics. I didn't know how to tell him that what he was about to attempt to do was just about impossible. My mother had tried several times, but the last time I set her kitchen on fire she decided I was a hopeless case. I was just lucky that the fire was small. It was, after all, smaller than the previous three fires I had set when my mother was teaching me how to cook. However, my parents had already given us our wedding present, and when I opened it up I found a fire extinguisher for the kitchen. Ranger thought it was funny, but I didn't know how to tell him that, if he continued to want to have me cook, it would be a necessary feature of any kitchen we shared.

The coffee had finished percolating, and I poured myself a cup and added a generous helping of cream. I had tried to tell Ranger several times that drinking so much cream was healthy. It was a dairy product, and everybody knew dairy products had calcium in them – something that was important to all pregnant women. Ranger didn't believe me yet, but I was working on him. At least, despite his beliefs that cream contained fat and fat wasn't good for you, he still put the amount of cream in my coffee that I liked. He might tease me and he might not agree with all my decisions and habits, but he would never try to force me to do anything that I didn't want to do. It was, I thought a sign of respect and of love. He didn't want to change me but just accepted me as I was. I had never had a boyfriend treat me like that before.

Of course, that was one of the reasons I was marrying him, wasn't it? That respect was addictive and I wanted to have more of that in my life.


	5. Chapter 5

I met Ranger with a coffee as he walked out of the shower. He smiled and thanked me as he dried off and wrapped the towel around his waist. I hoisted myself up on the counter as he filled his sink with hot water and lathered his soap. He used his brush to spread it on his face, and he took his razor and scraped off his whiskers. I looked down at the towel and wondered what Ranger would do if I reached out and pulled the towel loose so that I could take a little peek. While I knew the view would not disappoint, I also didn't want to startle Ranger and perhaps make his razor slip. The last thing he needed was a shaving nick on his face when we saw all his family the next day.

But I must have been looking at him intently and drooling, because when I returned my gaze from his nether region to his eyes, I caught him watching me with a smirk on his face.

"You never wear a beard", I said suddenly.

Ranger thought about smiling. "I do when I want to go undercover. I wore one when I was in hiding that time, when there was an order for my arrest on the street. Also, when I am out in the field, I wear a beard as there aren't the amenities or the time to shave. However, when I return to civilization I like to return to civilization completely. When I have a beard, I look a little raggedy and it's a good cover if I want to look tough. However, if I want to look like a businessman, it is better to keep my face smooth."

"I remember what you looked like. You definitely looked different than you do today. I think what really surprised me that time, though, was the lack of black that you wore." Ranger was known for his love of black and all his clothes reflected it. Every single piece of clothing he owned was in his signature color, from his shirts and pants to his socks and underwear. "It seemed very strange to see you in colors. You reminded me of a Gap pretty boy or an Abercrombie and Fitch poser."

Ranger had a pained expression on his face. "Thank God I got rid of all those clothes that I wore that time then", he said.

"I was wondering what happened to them."

"They were donated to the thrift store."

"I was thinking we could have kept them and showed them to our daughter as she grew and told her that you actually had worn colors once and had lived to tell the tale about it."

Ranger thought about smiling. "Smartass. So I like the color black."

"Luckily, the color likes you as well. You look amazing in black." I smiled. "You look amazing out of it as well." I reached down and grabbed his towel and gave a little tug. The plush terry fabric fell just as I thought it would, and I licked my lips. I looked up at Ranger's face as I got off the counter and sank to my knees, and saw that his eyes had dilated to black. I used my hands, tongue and lips to drive him wild.

When he was finished, I licked my lips and looked up at him. "You look good in black", I said, "but you look even better in nothing at all."

Ranger looked embarrassed. He looked at his watch. "I don't have time to take care of you, babe. I have a meeting in fifteen minutes, and we still have to eat breakfast."

I kissed him on his lips. "I'll take a rain check", I said. "It will give me something to look forward to today."

Ranger gave a half-smile. "Me too", he said. He hung up his towel and walked into the dressing room. As he pulled on some clothes, he said, "that had to be one of the hottest things that has ever happened to me."

"Hot? Why?"

"Seeing you kneeling in front of me wearing your business clothes? Hottest thing I've ever seen."

I laughed but I was starting to feel self-conscious, and I guess Ranger noticed. He smiled one of his half-smiles that I loved so much, and he grabbed the lapels of my blazer and pulled me closer to him. He kissed me deeply and slipped his hand beneath my blazer and massaged. By the time he pulled away I was breathing hard. I was glad to hear that he was as well. "Crap", said Ranger as he leaned his forehead against mine. "There are some days when I wish I didn't have to work." He gave me another kiss and stepped back as he sighed.

I smiled. "And this is one of them?"

He smiled self-consciously. "Oh, yeah. It definitely is." He stepped close and kissed me deeply again, and only pulled away as his watch alarm started to beep. "Damn, I have to go."

"What about breakfast?"

"No time. Besides, what I did was far more enjoyable." He gave another half-smile, gave me a quick kiss on my nose, and left the apartment.

I smiled slightly, pleased that I had been able to throw Ranger off his game. While I didn't want him to miss breakfast, it was satisfying knowing that Ranger preferred me over breakfast. He was the same person who wholeheartedly believed that breakfast was the most important meal of the day.

I wandered into the kitchen and cut myself some bread and cheese. I peeled a banana and sat to eat my breakfast while I worked. By the end of the morning, I had been able to assign work for the next two weeks, I had sent out an email to each of my staff leaving Miguel in charge while I was gone, and telling them that I would be out of contact on both Friday and Monday, but would be in email contact for the rest of the week and, in the case of emergency, I would also be available by cell phone.

Ranger sent me a text saying that he would be busy at lunch. He apologized and said that he would be up to chase me into bed for a nap before dinner. I smiled when I read the text. Ranger would always take care of me.

I grabbed my keys and slipped my feet into my ballerina flats, left the apartment and locked the door. I took the elevator down to the fifth floor and walked down the hall to the break room. As I passed Ranger's, I stuck my head in. "Did you get time for lunch, or did you want me to get a sandwich for you?"

"That would be wonderful. I'm starving."

"Did you get breakfast?"

"Nope." He noticed me looking worriedly at him, and he smiled. "I'm tough. I can take it."

I smiled, but turned around and hustled down to the break room. I picked out a chicken and lettuce sandwich on herbed bread, a container of cut vegetables, and an orange juice for Ranger, and a turkey club – without bacon, unfortunately, a fruit salad – without whipped cream, unfortunately, and two milks for me. I walked into Ranger's office with my bounty and put his meal on his desk. Ranger was on a call and, as I walked out, he asked me softly to shut the door on my way out.

I smiled at him, blew him a kiss which made him smile, and walked out of the office and down to the elevators. As I passed Tank's office, he called out to me. I entered, and Tank smiled at me. "So tomorrow is one of the big days?" he said.

I smiled. "I know we have only been engaged for two and a half months, but it has seemed like forever. I'm looking forward to getting that ring on my finger."

"People are betting when you are planning on getting married. Currently, Miguel and Dirk are winning."

"That's because they know that I'm in the wind both tomorrow and Monday. They have a pretty good idea as to the potential of it happening one of those days."

"What have you told them?"

"I told them that Ranger's ex, her husband and Julie are coming to town. Even so, they aren't stupid and I'm sure that it would be easy for them to figure out. I haven't told them though."

"They are also betting on whether the baby will be a boy or a girl, and what day and time the baby will be born."

I laughed. "I think everyone has far too much time on their hands. Ranger is planning on releasing that information in a staff memo this afternoon."

"When is your next obstetrician's appointment?"

"Tomorrow morning", I said. "According to what the doctor said yesterday, she'll be a healthy baby girl."

Tank smiled. "She's going to be beautiful", he said. "What will you name her?"

"Tia Rose. We're naming her after Ranger's Aunt Tia and his Grandma Rosa. We thought the names sounded pretty with each other."

Tank looked at me, a soft expression on his face. "I'm looking forward to meeting her."

I smiled. "You and me both."

"I like babies. I'm always a little worried about them. They are so little, and I am so big. However, I look forward to cuddling yours. I know I enjoyed cuddling my nieces and nephews."

"Hey, did you hear about the woman who was pregnant with twins, and she was in a car accident?"

"No. What happened?"

"Yeah, she was in a car accident and the doctors weren't sure if she was going to make it. They decided to deliver the two babies and hope that the mother pulled through. They had the woman's brother name the kids. When the woman woke up from her coma a few days later, the doctors told her that the kids had been delivered successfully, that she had a baby boy and a baby girl, and that her brother had named the children. The woman was worried about it. Her brother wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed. So she asked the doctor what the names of the kids were. The doctor told her that the baby girl was named Denise. The woman breathed a sigh of relief and thought that Denise wasn't so bad. So she asked the doctor what he had named her son, and the doctor replied 'Denephew'."

Tank laughed. "I thought you were telling me a true story for most of that."

I smiled. "Now, what would the fun of that be?"


	6. Chapter 6

As I put my nightie on and Ranger undressed and threw his dirty clothes in the hamper, he said, "Tank told me a very funny joke today that he said you told him."

I climbed into the bed and scooted over to the middle. Ranger got into bed after me and left the light on. I smiled. I knew what that meant. Ranger wanted to see my bump's progress, and whether he could see the baby move in my tummy. And after he was awed by the baby's development? That's when the fireworks happened.

"You mean the Denise and Denephew joke?" I said.

"I had never heard it before. Apparently he had told a number of people, and now there are bets being placed that there are going to be twins born."

I laughed. "Did you send out the all-staff memo tonight?"

"I did. I told everyone that we were having a girl, her anticipated due date, and that her name would be Tia Rose. This will increase the number of bets placed on when the baby will be born and take away the bets on the sex of the baby."

"That will be good. After all, there aren't too many options to bet on whether the baby is a boy or a girl."

Ranger smiled. "They could always pick an elephant."

I looked at him in concern. "I don't look like I'm expecting an elephant, do I?"

Ranger thought about smiling. "Not at all. You are an incredibly sexy woman who doesn't look anything like you're expecting an elephant. God, I hope the baby looks like you."

"I hope she looks like you and I hate to tell you, it is more likely that I'll get my way than you will. Genetics being genetics, she'll likely have your tanned skin and hair and eye color."

"That's unfortunate."

"Why's that? You're a great looking person that, if she takes after you, will mean that she'll be the prettiest little girl around."

"I don't know about that", said Ranger. His face flushed.

I looked at him. "You really don't see how good looking you are, do you?"

Ranger looked surprised. "I'm not good looking. I don't have interesting blue eyes like yours, or soft hair or curls. I have to work at my body to make it look good. Comparatively, you look good even though you do little exercise. You have the most fascinating eyes that seem to change color and become darker and lighter according to your mood. Your hair is medium brown but it has a lot of natural caramel highlights to it which makes it an interesting brown. My own hair is a flat brown and has no highlights, and my eyes are a boring brown."

"Your eyes change colour according to your mood as well", I said. "They look lighter when they are happy and almost black when you are aroused."

He snaked his hands under my nightie and massaged my baby bump before dropping his hands to a lower body part. "What color are my eyes now?"

I looked at him and smiled. "Definitely black."

Ranger grinned. "You're right. My eyes do change color according to my mood."

I laughed, but my laugh soon turned to moans.

Ranger smiled. "I don't know why you bother putting a nightie on. You know that I'm just going to strip it off."

I smiled. "It's kind of like Christmas. It's not nearly as fun if you don't get to unwrap the present."

Ranger laughed.

He pulled the nightgown up and over my head and looked at my body. He smiled. "I think you are right", he said. "You are the best present I have ever unwrapped."

I frowned. I had made an unfortunate analogy – I didn't know if I liked the thought of being a present. It made me sound like a thing rather than a person, someone who could be given away at will. But as he dropped his head and his five o'clock shadow rasped against my tender skin on the inside of my thigh, I decided that I liked being a present very much.

It was Christmas three times before I fell asleep, and like any good Christmas celebration, I prayed to God several times before I was finished.

The next morning, I slept through Ranger's alarm, slept through his shower, and slept through him getting dressed. In fact, I didn't wake up until he woke me at nine. "I'm sorry, babe", he said as he kissed me awake. "You need to get up. We have to leave in an hour to get to the obstetrician's for our appointment."

I sat up and held out my hands, my eyes still closed as Ranger put a cup of coffee in my hands and wrapped my fingers around it. I brought the brew to my face and sniffed, and my eyes slowly opened as I took a sip. "God, I'll be glad to be drinking caffeine again."

Ranger thought about smiling. "You actually have been more awake off caffeine than I thought you would be. In the past, I had thought that it would be faster to just give you caffeine intravenously rather than through coffee. You drank enough of the brew to warrant it."

I smiled. "I've always liked coffee, although when I was younger I liked it with sugar. When I was on a kick to lose weight as a twenty-year old I stopped drinking it with sugar."

"Did you need to lose weight?" said Ranger. "I have trouble envisioning you with a pudgy body."

"In retrospect, no. I didn't need to lose weight. However, I think every female goes through the thought that they were fat at least one time during their lives. Society programs us to think that way. If you look at any billboard or any gossip magazine, you see skinny people. I saw a short film done for Dove beauty products once, and it really put the whole fashion industry in perspective for me. It takes a normal-looking woman and puts makeup on her until she looked fabulous. Then the pictures were taken of her and you could see the pictures being Photoshopped. The resulting billboard picture is shown, with the before and after photos. The difference was amazing. They had taken an average woman and made her a supermodel. It was part of their 'real beauty' campaign. You can see the film on YouTube."

"Sounds like a good thing for Julie to see."

"I think it's a good thing for everyone to see. It really shows that what you see in ads isn't reality."

"Now you have me curious", said Ranger. He pulled out his phone and accessed YouTube, typed in 'Dove commercial photoshop' and clicked on 'Evolution'. He watched the minute-and-a-half video. "Holy shit", he said. "That's astounding."

"I know, right? It was so easy to make that normal-looking woman turn into something extraordinary. It makes you question all the pictures you see in print or on the television. Just think, with the right hair and makeup and a lot of help through Photoshop, I too could look like a model."

Ranger put away his phone and kissed me on the lips. "You're prettier than any model I've seen", he said.

I looked at him with a mock frown. "I already said I'd marry you."

Ranger chuckled. "I'm not saying it to get something. I'm saying it because I believe it."

I smiled. "I know, and I love you for it."

"Is that the only reason you love me?" he said.

I grinned. "I might love you for your cooking as well." As if on cue, my stomach rumbled.

Ranger grinned and pulled me to my feet. "I think it is time to put some food in that stomach."

"What's for breakfast?"

"Ham and cheese quiche, wholegrain toast and a fruit salad."

"Mmm", I said. "I definitely married you for your food."

Ranger thought about smiling. "I hate to tell you, babe, but I didn't marry you for yours."

I laughed.


	7. Chapter 7

Ranger and I walked into the waiting room and registered for my appointment. Dr. Wilson was running on time, and we didn't have to wait long until we were in a room. I had gained ten pounds in total so far, even though I felt like I had gained much more, and the doctor, when he came in, told me that I was right on target. "If you gain a lot of weight, you put yourself at risk and it often doesn't mean that the baby will be any bigger. It would just mean that it would be harder for you to lose the weight again." Since I was all for losing the weight again after the birth, I was gratified that the weight I had gained was in the healthy zone.

"I can understand that", I said. "My sister loved gravy when she was pregnant – so much so I thought she was going to have a baby piggy rather than a human baby. I kept asking her whether the ultrasound showed the baby having a corkscrew tail. My brother-in-law took me seriously and told me that humans couldn't have a tail. I, of course, found a picture online of a baby with a tail. Albert was, I think, from that point on afraid that his children were going to be born with tails."

The doctor smiled. "There is no indication in your ultrasound that the baby will be born with a tail."

I breathed a sigh of relief. "That's good. I thought it was funny when I had been teasing my sister but now that I'm pregnant I don't think it is nearly as funny."

The doctor laughed.

Ranger smiled. "I can understand your comments, babe. I hadn't considered that your sister was carrying a baby piggy, but I had wondered if she was really pregnant at all or whether she just had an enormous tapeworm living in her abdomen."

"Thank God you never mentioned that one in front of Albert. I already had him upset enough about the tail comment. I don't think he would have coped if I had suggested to him that Val had a tapeworm instead of a baby."

Ranger smiled. Albert was a good guy, but he wasn't any bright light. Despite being a lawyer, he was uncomfortable around people, couldn't spot a liar to save his life, and wasn't particularly analytical. He was short and pudgy, had sandy curly hair arranged in a comb-over, and was so out of shape that he got winded tying his shoes. Despite all that, he was a lovable man in a squishable teddy bear-sort of way, he tried hard to do the right thing, and he cared deeply about my sister and his kids. Ranger and I liked him immensely.

Albert's business was slow at best. He was an ambulance chaser, and not a very good one. He had never won a case in the seven years since he had been practicing law, and unfortunately that track record repelled a lot of potential business. Since he was having trouble earning enough money to support his growing family, my mother had recently offered to look after Val's and Albert's five children so that Val could get a job. Valerie had started a job as an office manager in a real estate company just three weeks before. She worked Wednesday to Sunday, and Albert looked after the kids on the weekend while my sister worked. Val was glad to have the job, but Ranger and I had noticed that she was a little resentful that Ranger was doing so well financially while her husband wasn't. I think she loved her husband and she definitely loved her kids, but I didn't think she loved where she was in life. She had made several drunken statements over the Christmas holidays inferring that love didn't last and no man could be expected to remain faithful after the woman had a baby. I, of course, then asked her whether Albert had strayed, and her response was that Albert wasn't a man. Unfortunately, I could see what she was saying. Albert was a kind and thoughtful person, but he didn't scream manliness when you looked at or talked to him.

Hearing Val's comments over the Christmas dinner, however, were hurtful and I had purposely not spent time with her since. I heard about how she was doing from my mother, and that was a close enough interaction for me. Personally, I thought that she'd had it too easy in her life. In school, she was the captain of the cheerleading team, on the honor roll, and was the kind of kid that didn't suffer from acne or menstrual cramps or need braces. I, however, wasn't so lucky. I had been a baton twirler in school, and when I lost control of the baton and it flew into the tuba, the teacher kindly inferred that a different extracurricular activity would be more appropriate for me. I didn't make the honor roll despite trying, I both suffered from acne and needed braces growing up, and menstruation was a pain for me, no pun intended.

I called Val 'Saint Valerie', because nothing seemed to go wrong in her life. She graduated high school in the top five percent and was awarded a scholarship to college. She attended Thomas Edison State University and graduated with an arts degree four years later. By the time she finished, she was engaged to the perfect man. They got married and moved out west, and she had two perfect children. It wasn't until her perfect husband cheated on her with their perfect babysitter that she'd ever had anything not go her way. I think it had been a real shocker to her.

Comparatively, I'd had to fight for every single step I took. My name wasn't featured on the honor roll and instead of being a cheerleader – or a baton twirler – I worked my way through high school. I didn't win any scholarships to any university and was, in fact, not even accepted to Thomas Edison. The closest college that I was accepted at was Douglass College, and I was grateful for the acceptance. I barely passed college and, when I did, I ended up marrying a jackass of a husband that I broke up with a hot second later. My life, until I met Ranger, was a series of near misses and unequivocal failures.

My life improved when I met Ranger. I'd had a job that mostly paid the rent. There were some months I had to rely heavily on doggy bags from my mother, but mostly I was able to pay my way. I'd started going out with Joe Morelli, a detective with the Trenton Police Department and, although he wasn't the right person for me for life, he was the right person for me at the time. I'd developed a close friendship with Ranger…and when I broke up with Morelli, Ranger and I decided to follow through and try a relationship. I hadn't looked back since.

So life, for the first time, was easy for me and not for Val, and I was embarrassed to say that I was glad that for once I was coming out on top.

I would be seeing Val at the wedding. I don't know if she had noticed me avoiding her, but it made my life much more comfortable. Personally, I would be happy never talking to her again. Ranger told me that she was my only sister and I should give her another chance, but I didn't see why I should have to put up with her bullshit because I was excelling in life while she was finding things a little challenging. I didn't want to get hurt again.

But then, I didn't tell Ranger everything that Val had said. I was afraid that he'd get mad. The last person he'd gotten mad at on my behalf was my ex-husband, and he'd provided the information necessary for my ex to be arrested and jailed. I didn't know what he'd do to Val and, although I was mad at her, I didn't want to deal with the family drama that would be associated with Ranger seeking his revenge. He was sneaky, and she would never see the revenge coming until it was too late.

So Val was now working at the real estate office and she said that she was enjoying it. I think she liked working weekends so that she didn't have to deal with Albert all day and all night, and as much as she adored her kids, I think she was enjoying having a break from them as well.

My mother and grandmother were looking after the kids from Wednesday to Friday, and they found that the three days a week was about perfect. My mother got her 'grandma' fix, but they still had time to themselves to run all the errands they couldn't do when they had the little ones in tow.

The doctor looked at us and smiled. "I reviewed the ultrasound, and I can tell you that you don't have a tapeworm either", he said. "Your baby girl appears to be healthy and whole. Let's listen to the heartbeat."

I lay back on the examining table and pulled up my top. He pulled down my waistband and measured my bump. He wrote it down and squirted some gel on my tummy, spread it around with the wand, and turned the fetal Doppler on to listen to the heartbeat. A loud whump-whump was heard in the room and, after a few seconds, the doctor smiled, handed me a tissue, and wrote down the heart rate on his chart. "Everything sounds good", he said. "Have you been rolling around on the ground with any skips recently?"

I smiled. When I first met the doctor, a felon had attacked me and I had been kicked hard in the stomach. When I started to bleed, the doctor put me on bed rest for a week. It had been a trying time – I wasn't the kind of person that dealt well with lying around all day. Luckily, Ranger hadn't run away when I moaned and bellyached and pouted my way through the enforced bed rest. I don't know if I would have been as stolid in the same situation.

"No", I said, "although after I saw you a month ago a gangbanger tried to shoot me on two separate occasions."

"What happened?"

"The first time he hit my bodyguard and the second time he shot another gangbanger. Although, to be honest, I think the second time he was actually aiming for Ranger."

"Was your bodyguard okay?"

"He was. He got hit in the shoulder but it didn't hit anything important. He's back at work now and is irritated that he has to do paperwork while his shoulder finishes healing."

"You know, if I didn't know better, I would think that you were pulling my leg."

I laughed. "I think Zach wishes that I was."

The doctor laughed. "What are your plans over the next few weeks?"

"We're getting married on Monday, so we'll be going on a honeymoon."

"I'm glad you're taking a holiday. I hope you're going somewhere warm."

Ranger smiled. "We're going to Miami for a couple of days, and then to Atlanta for a couple of days. Unfortunately, it's going to be a working holiday. We are saving our days off until the baby is born."

"But don't you own your company?" asked the doctor. "Can't you take as many holidays as you want?"

"Technically", said Ranger, "that is true. However, my company is growing fast and every single member of my team is working overtime – and I'm no different. I work over twelve hours a day, seven days a week. I'm trying to offload some of my responsibilities, but in the meantime the work is there and it needs to get done."

Dr. Wilson turned to me. "How many hours are you working in a week?"

I flushed. "I have just recently tripled my staff complement, and have now reduced my hours to about seventy-five a week. I'd do more, but I'm getting too tired."

The doctor looked at me, his mouth open in surprise. "That's a reduction?"

"I was working hundred-hour work weeks. I'd work more but Ranger chases me off to bed for an afternoon nap."

"That's good. You need your sleep, and seventy-five hour work weeks are not good enough. How do you think that you'll ever be able to balance a baby with your working schedule?"

Tears came to my eyes. Already I felt like I was a failure as a mother and I hadn't even had the baby. "By then I will have trained my staff. In the last month I have hired four and a half new staff, and my department in the last six months has grown from just me to seven and a half people. I'm still training the four and a half people, but they are learning fast and I think by the time I'm on maternity leave they will be quite comfortable in the role."

"I've been watching Steph's department's timesheets", said Ranger. "If I see that people are consistently pulling a lot of overtime again, we'll hire on more staff to meet the demand. Steph is doing something amazing with her department, and people are clamoring for her services. If we have to hire on more staff, than we will. However, if we can I'd like to hold things steady for a while, just until we are able to identify the skillset we exactly need the next time we hire someone."

"What do you mean?" said Dr. Wilson. "Isn't a researcher a researcher?"

"I have people with a variety of backgrounds on staff", I said. "I have forensic accountants, librarians and computer hackers. I use all of their specific skills when doing research."

He marked something down on my chart. "I know this might be falling onto deaf ears, but I want you to rest. Working so hard isn't good for you or the baby, and being tired will make the delivery and recovery that much more difficult." He paused and looked at me as I tried to imagine what I could do with my time that wouldn't be work. "I don't want you working more than ten hours a day, five days a week. Fifty hours in a week is more than enough." He looked at my unhappy face and sighed. "Look, Stephanie. When the nurse took your blood pressure, it was elevated and that's not good for you. It is something that we have to keep our eye on. To help with that, you have to divorce yourself from work. The stress associated with your work schedule is high."

"I don't feel like I'm under stress."

"I know, but your body is showing that you are. Do you suffer from headaches?"

"No."

"Has your nausea abated?"

"It's completely gone."

"Do you have any abdominal pain or have any changes in your vision?"

"No."

"That's good. However, I have to tell you that I'm still concerned about your blood pressure. Have you ever had problems with your blood pressure before?"

"Not that I know of."

"I don't want to put you on medication until we try lifestyle changes first. However, we'll keep our eye on it. I want you to cut your hours down to fifty in a week. You need to rest and relax, and you aren't taking the time you need to do that. I also want you to drink at least eight glasses of water a day, and consume less salt."

"But the baby is fine?"

"Right now, the baby is perfectly fine. However, the baby won't continue to be fine if we don't get this high blood pressure under control. High blood pressure can cause death in either you and/or the baby. It is a dangerous problem that can have serious complications if it is left untreated."

"But…" I said.

The doctor sighed. "Fifty hours, Stephanie. I'm limiting you to fifty hours a week. I'd like to see less, but somehow I think I'd be asking for the moon."

"What is Steph's blood pressure?" asked Ranger. His shoulders were tense and his eyes were worried, and I knew by looking at him that he would force me to reduce my hours even if he had to sit on me to stop me from working.

"132/80. I think that, with lifestyle changes, we'll be able to get Stephanie's blood pressure down."

"What is the recommendation regarding exercise now?" said Ranger. "I know that, after Steph almost lost the baby, that you recommended that she stop exercising."

"I still don't want her doing strenuous exercise. However, some mild exercise each day would be good for both stress reduction as well as to help reduce her blood pressure. Something like a short walk or some yoga would be beneficial."

"We can do that", said Ranger.

I groaned. I hated exercise.

Ranger looked at the expression on my face and thought about smiling. "Cheer up, babe. At least the doctor isn't recommending running."

"No, definitely not running", said the doctor.

"Thank God", I said. I hated running. Running made you sweat in places that shouldn't sweat. Between the boobs was bad enough, but I particularly hated sweating between my thighs. If you wore tight exercise clothing like I do, I was always afraid that it made me look like I'd peed myself. Before I got pregnant, Ranger regularly badgered me into running on the treadmill for fifteen minutes each day. I had taken to wearing antiperspirant on my thighs just to stop the sweaty chafing. I hated every minute of my time on the treadmill and only did it because it made Ranger happy…and because Ranger promised me dessert for every fifteen minutes I ran. I much preferred to practice my self-defense, but somehow I thought that Dr. Wilson would consider me practicing my fighting skills as too dangerous. It was too bad. There was something inherently arousing to grapple with Ranger and get all hot and sweaty with him. Unlike running, practicing self-defense was a good kind of sweat.

The doctor smiled. "We'll check your blood pressure at your next appointment again. Until then, I hope you enjoy your wedding and your honeymoon. You'll be making memories that will last you for the rest of your life. Concentrate on reducing your stress. And don't worry. We have a cause for concern but not a cause for upset. I fully anticipate that we'll be able to reduce your blood pressure through changes to your lifestyle."

"Okay", I said.

He stood and shook our hands. "Take it easy, and congratulations on your upcoming marriage."

He left the room, and Ranger turned to me. "You have the staff now to allow you to reduce your hours", he said.

"I know", I said. "What am I supposed to do with my time if I'm not working?"

Ranger sighed. "Hell if I know", he said.


	8. Chapter 8

Ranger drove me back to the office. "What are you planning on doing when we get back?" he asked.

"I had been planning on doing a couple of capture plans."

"That's not an option now, babe."

"But Ranger, I won't be doing any work for the next week. That means that I can do fifty hours today."

Ranger thought about smiling, but his eyes were still worried. "I don't think it works that way", he said. "Moderation is the key, and you aren't living in a way where you are practicing moderation."

I sighed. "I will reduce my hours to fifty hours a week if you reduce your hours as well."

"Babe."

"Seriously, Ranger. If it isn't good for me, it isn't good for you either."

"I don't have a problem with high blood pressure", he said.

"I don't know why I have a problem right now. I've never had a problem with high blood pressure before."

"You've never been pregnant before."

"I don't think I want to be pregnant any more. I hate being bored."

"Babe, you heard the doctor. We have to get this under control."

I sighed. "I know. But that doesn't mean that I can't do capture plans."

"Why don't you have a long soak in the tub instead, and get ready for the dinner tonight?"

"That sounds boring."

"Why don't you contact the staff trainer and set up some appointments with him so that he can lead you through a variety of pregnancy-safe exercises?"

"I hate exercise."

"Babe."

"I think it will cause me more stress to not work than it will to do it."

"I don't want to see you in the office today. If you take the time off until the next appointment and your blood pressure is low enough, we'll talk about adding responsibilities back in. However, in the meantime, you need to do what the doctor says. I think you having a nap is a good idea."

"I'm not tired."

"Babe."

"I just woke up two hours ago."

"And weren't you the same person who growled at me when I woke you up and told me that you'd castrate me if I continued waking you up?"

"So I may be a little grumpy in the morning."

"Babe."

I sighed. "I can work, Ranger."

"Babe, I'm telling you as your fiancé and soon-to-be husband that you can't work over the next two weeks. It isn't safe for you or the baby. I'm telling you as your employer that I don't want to see you in the office. I'm putting you on sick leave, effective immediately."

I shuddered in a breath as I hoped that the threatening tears wouldn't fall.

Ranger pulled into the Rangeman parking lot as I shuddered in another breath, and he parked the car as I got myself under control.

"I have that appointment with Gabriel at lunch", said Ranger, "and I'll pick up some sandwiches for us on my way back to the apartment." Gabriel was our corporate psychiatrist. Ranger had been meeting with him weekly ever since he had seen me get shot twice just before Christmas. It had upset Ranger so much that he was regularly suffering from nightmares and Ranger, normally overprotective, became even more so. He was terrified that something was going to happen to me and, when I was threatened by the Slayers three weeks before, that worry got out of control. Ranger had started to see Gabriel to talk things over, and I thought the sessions were helping. Of course, I hadn't been in danger since then either, so it was a little hard to tell.

I was glad that Ranger was meeting with Gabriel. I hoped that Gabriel would calm Ranger down about the no-work thing. I didn't know what I would do with myself if I didn't work. I mean, I could visit my mother and grandmother, but I didn't want to tell them about the high blood pressure. They would just worry. I could go to the bonds office and visit with Connie and Lula but, after being shot at while in their building and seeing Zach get hit, I didn't particularly want to go there either. I could visit with Ella, but she was so busy that I didn't think that she'd have time for tea. Besides, she was in the process of training an assistant, and that meant that her time was taken with instructing Jessica.

Ranger walked with me to the elevator, his hand holding mine tightly. I knew how upset he was. All his little tells were there – the tension around his eyes, the rigidity of his shoulders, the poker face to hide his emotions, the tightness of his hand on mine. He wasn't going to recover from this worry too quickly. I sighed. Whether I liked it or not, I could see that I wouldn't be doing any work in my future.

Ranger gave me a kiss and, when the elevator got to the second floor, he got off and walked down to the psychiatrist's office. Ranger had recently reorganized the office and, until the new office was built, he had moved the Administrative and Support Services into some temporary office space a short distance away. However, he had kept the staff psychiatrist in the existing office building with the Operations staff. He did that for two reasons. The first was that the existing office building had offices that the psychiatrist could use as a therapy room. The temporary location had no offices at all. The second reason, equally as important, was that at least ninety percent of the patients were Operations staff, and it made sense for staff to be able to access Gabriel's services easily.

My office had moved to the same floor as Gabriel's office, but when the office was renovated I would be moving to the fourth floor with the other peripheral Operations staff. I called them peripheral staff as we were part of Operations, but we weren't a central part of Operations. I considered our ERTs and our monitoring staff to be the core of Operations and, therefore by association, our system design and installation teams. As such, they were located on the fifth floor with Tank's and Ranger's offices. My floor would contain Research, Cybersecurity, Investigative Services, Personal Security and Onsite Security. All of us were peripheral Operations staff although, arguably, the security guards in Onsite Security should be considered part of our core functions as well.

I sighed again as the elevator doors closed, and I thought that I would send an email to Miguel asking for an update on our research requests. That wouldn't be considered work, would it? After all, I wasn't actually doing the work. I just wanted to know what was going on.

I also remembered that I needed to put an alert on my email asking that all research-related emails be sent directly to Miguel. It had been hard for me to choose between Miguel and Dirk, my two managers, as to who would be in charge while I was gone. However, Miguel had been doing the job longer than I had, and I knew that he was more experienced in research than Dirk. At the same time, Dirk was a trained accountant and could do all the financial research that was above Miguel's and my abilities. However, when I was trying to figure out who would be the better person to put in charge during my holidays, Dirk took me aside and told me that Miguel would be the better person. He said that he'd only been doing research for two months, and Miguel was a much better researcher than he was. Hearing his comments made my job much easier, and I was glad that Dirk didn't have any ruffled feathers when I named Miguel as the person to take over in my absence.

We had hired a great group of people. Gwynne and Emily, a librarian and a computer specialist, were our two full-time researchers who had been hired to do client research. They were Miguel's staff, and they had taken to research like a duck to water. We had hired them a month ago and I had been glad that we had selected them. I think they liked their jobs and they were great team players. Petra, who was our part-time person that we shared with Cybersecurity, was a talented computer specialist and because of her research experience, the head of Cybersecurity had assigned her to revamp our in-house designed search engine to make it faster, more accurate and less labor-intensive. The work that she had been doing was good, and our initial findings with the new and improved product were that more fields were filled in automatically, which drastically cut the time it took to do the research and reporting. Our two newest employees, Lauren and Liam, were both forensic accountants and worked under Dirk. They were both new accountants who were enjoying the chance to review various corporations and analyze their findings. Like Gwynne and Emily and Petra, they were good hires and I was glad to have them on staff.

In a short period of time, I had been able to pull together a talented team of individuals. Despite that, I was a bit worried about taking a week off work. While they were talented, two-thirds of my team were still green, and I worried that I was leaving too many problems in Miguel's and Dirk's laps by leaving them for a holiday.

I got to the apartment and let myself in, put on a pot of decaf, and pulled over my computer. I accessed my work email and turned on the automatic message to direct any inquiries to Miguel. I should have done it earlier, but I had thought that I would have the afternoon to do work.

I then sent Miguel a message that I had put the automatic reply on my email. Seconds later, the phone rang. "Hello?" I said.

"Hey, chica", said Miguel. "What are you doing working this afternoon? I thought you were on holiday."

"Not yet. Ranger and I will be leaving around three today and will be starting our holidays then."

"Ranger popped by the office a few minutes ago. He looked upset."

"He'll be okay." I hoped.

"He said the doctor said that you had high blood pressure and he was taking you off work for the next month."

"Ranger is overreacting." I hoped.

"You can't take these things lightly, chica. If the doctor says that you should take the next month off, then you should take the next month off."

"What the doctor said precisely was that he wanted me to work no more than fifty hours a week and that he wanted to keep his eye on things. I'll have to go for more obstetrical appointments over the next few months, but he wanted me to reduce my hours, to add gentle exercise to my day, to limit salt intake and increase water consumption, and to spend more time relaxing with my feet up. He didn't say that I had to quit work completely."

"Does Ranger know that?"

"He should. He was in my appointment with me."

"I think, chica, for Ranger's own sense of comfort you may want to quit work for the next four weeks anyway. It comes at a good time. One week of that you'll be on holidays and the other three weeks you can rest with your feet up."

I groaned.

"Seriously, chica, you named me as the person who was filling in for you when you were gone. Don't you trust me to do the job?"

"Of course, I do."

"Then let me do the job."

I sighed. "Okay. By taking today off, though, I won't be able to get those capture plans done."

"I can do those."

"Thanks. I assigned work to do last night and emailed everyone, but I'm expecting more work to come through the Newark Police. That should come in by the end of today."

"Okay."

"Morelli emailed me last night and told me that he has a couple of research requests as well, and Advantage emailed me with a research request that I have passed on to Dirk." Advantage Financial was the mutual fund company that used us in their assessment of potential companies that they were considering buying. We did the due diligence reviews for them, and had been getting enough business from them to employ a half-time person just for their reviews. It was good as they paid extremely well.

"Is that all?"

"Tank told me that he has two more companies that he will be passing on corporate set-up as well. One of the companies has forty-two employees while the other company has two hundred and sixty-three employees."

"Tank knows to send the requests to me, doesn't he?"

"He does, although remember that the requests will be coming through Hal after Monday, as he takes over the Vice-Presidency and Tank moves on to become Executive Vice-President. Both men know that you are taking over in my absence, but they are also anticipating that I will be reachable by phone. I think, though, that Ranger will blow his stack if I do any work when I am away."

"I think this is one of those times when you have to cater to him."

"I know."

"Don't worry, chica. Dirk and I have this well in hand. We'll take good care of your department for you."

"Thanks, Miguel."

"Have a great holiday."

"Thanks." After saying goodbye, I hung up the phone and looked at the clock. The phone call had taken fifteen minutes. I just had another forty-five minutes to go until Ranger was back for lunch. And then, after lunch, another hour and a half to go until it was time to go to Newark for the family party. I looked at the clock again. Another minute had passed. I sighed. Just another forty-four minutes to go until lunch.

I was counting down.


	9. Chapter 9

I was going insane with wanting something to do. I had already read the "What to Expect When You Were Expecting" book so many times when I was relegated to lying down that I thought that I had memorized it. Having a long, hot bath as Ranger had suggested was never my first choice of things to do. I had always found that a little boring and, after Ranger had said once that there was something inherently gross about sitting in dirty water, I had never been interested in having a bath since. I had never thought previously about it that way before.

So reading was out, bathing was out, I didn't want to have a nap until after lunch, and I didn't want to get ready yet to go to the party. I pulled over my computer and checked my Facebook site and, after getting caught up on days of postings that I had been ignoring, I switched over and looked up room designs on Pinterest.

Ranger came up to the apartment bearing lunch, and I smiled in relief as he came in the door. "Thank God you're back", I said.

Ranger immediately tensed. "Is something wrong?"

"I'm going nuts with not having anything to do."

"Babe." Ranger's body relaxed. "I brought lunch. That should use up some of your time. If you slow down your eating, you may be able to use up a whole three minutes."

"Smartass", I said under my breath. Ranger heard me, and a smile bloomed on his face.

I made a face at him and he laughed.

"You aren't feeling my pain. I'm bored, Ranger. I can't simply do nothing. I think it is worse for me to not do anything than it is for me to be doing work. I can certainly feel my blood pressure going up the longer I sit here."

"Look for more pictures that you like of room designs in preparation for furnishing our home when it is built."

"I already did that."

"You got all that done in just an hour? I would have thought that it would have taken you far longer than an hour to do that."

"I started a few weeks ago."

He poured glasses of milk and put them on the breakfast bar to join the sandwiches and containers of cut vegetables that he had brought up. "Look up the dangers of hypertension in pregnant women", he said as he sat down.

I sighed.

"If it makes you feel any better, Gabriel challenged me to work the same hours that you work and only those hours. I also don't know how I am going to do that, and I don't know how I will fill my time. I've been busy, it seems, for years and slowing down is challenging."

"I work two full-time jobs."

"And I work the equivalent hours of two full-time jobs with overtime. I know I need to slow down. I just don't know how."

"You've hired people to help me. Do you think it is time for you to hire an assistant?"

"I just don't know what the assistant could do. Now that I have promoted Tank to Executive Vice-President and promoted Hal up to the Vice-President of Operations position, Tank is taking on more of my responsibilities. That position change will happen as of Monday."

"It makes sense. Tank really is your right-hand man, and I'm glad he is getting more recognition than Nate does. I mean, I know that Nate is a great leader and is doing a good job looking after the administrative and support services. However, Tank does more than Nate and he should be recognized as such in both job title and in salary."

"Tank's annual bonus, like all people on the executive team, is five percent of his salary. I'm thinking of increasing Tank's and my salaries to reflect the position and greater responsibility. I was also thinking of taking away Tank's bonus and instead paying him a portion of the dividends. I was thinking about doing the same for Nate and Bob and Hal." Nate was the Vice-President of Administrative and Support Services, and Bob was the Chief Financial Officer. "I take ten percent of the dividends for myself, but I'm thinking of giving Tank five percent of our net revenues and Nate and Bob and Hal two percent each."

"That will be quite lucrative for them."

"They work hard for their salaries, and I think that should be recognized."

"What about Russ?" Russ was the Executive Director for the Miami location of Rangeman.

"I was thinking of giving all Executive Directors a ten-percent bonus and all departmental directors a five-percent bonus. The other staff will continue to receive a two-percent bonus. With having reorganized everything so that there are greater levels in the company, I think the increased responsibilities of the staff should be reflected in the bonus system."

"That makes sense. What sort of salaries has Wes been paying?"

"There will be some changes to his finances. First of all, his accounts receivable and accounts payable will be moving to this location. Staff are welcome to move if they are interested or, if they aren't, they will be paid a severance and let go. Secondly, the salaries will be increased. Wes was extraordinarily cheap, and his staff salaries didn't reflect either the money that was earned by the staff or the going rates for the local area. I think that should be changed. That was, in fact, the one area that Wes and I always argued about. I felt that staff should be paid more than the going rate for the area, and Wes always wanted to keep their salaries extremely low and pay less. He would never have done things like pay for a trainer or a psychiatrist. He didn't believe in rewarding his staff at all."

"Those perks make Rangeman a happy place to work. They make people feel like they are appreciated and valued for their contribution."

"I've always felt that as well. Wes was concerned with making money, and with taking as great a percentage of the revenues out as a dividend as he did, he was making a lot of money. I'd rather turn those revenues back into the company and grow my company than take such an unreasonably large salary for myself."

"That makes sense. I never asked you. Did you have a good meeting with Gabriel?"

"I did. As I said, he dared me to work as many hours as you do, and we talked about ways that I could make that happen. He said that he was worried about your high blood pressure, but he was equally worried about me burning out. He went over the risks and what could happen to you and the baby if your blood pressure remains high. It just reinforced to me that we have to control it and, if you need to be put on sick leave until the baby is born so that we can, then you'll have to go on sick leave."

"I can see Gabriel's point that burning out is a real concern too. Are you glad that you are meeting with him?"

"Gabriel is a good man. He is a good listener and he's helpful in me figuring out my feelings. Before, they were a whole tangled ball wrapped up in a layer of anxiety, and because they were all tangled up I simply didn't know what I was feeling bad about. I couldn't take any proactive steps to make myself feel better. Now, he's helping me tease out the individual feelings and their causes, and I'm able to take proactive steps to solve the problems and the time to be thankful for all the good things in my life." He finished his sandwich and opened his container of cut vegetables. He slid the container of dip towards me. While Ranger was a no-dip man, I was a two-dip woman, and I took his dip and opened it up to dunk in my cut vegetables. I had already wiped out my own dip container with my vegetables and, since the dip was so good, I had almost licked the dip container clean. That was my kind of eating. There was none of that no-dip eating for me.

"What other steps have you decided to take, other than reducing your hours and promoting Tank and Hal up?"

"We have also talked about the purchase of Wes's company and giving more responsibility to the Executive Directors. We talked about our honeymoon. You are happy with the honeymoon that we have selected, aren't you?"

"Yes. I know that you are jammed for time and probably can't take longer, just as much as I know that I can't take longer. I don't mind that we are doing work while we're on our honeymoon. In all honesty, I took a formal honeymoon with my first marriage, and we had our first fight during our honeymoon. Formal honeymoons don't have good connotations to me."

"I'll be working. You'll be resting."

"I have to do something, Ranger. I can't just sit there with nothing to do while you work."

Ranger sighed. "I know, babe. That's what Gabriel said. He said that this baby was as much mine as it was yours, but that I wasn't doing my part in making sure that you and the baby stayed safe. He said I was falling down as a protector."

I stared at him and my mouth fell open. Gabriel had taken a pot shot. Ranger was the most protective person I had ever met, and to question his protectiveness was questioning who he was as a person. "How did you feel about that?"

Ranger looked down at the remainder of his cut vegetables. "I realized he was right. Here I am trying to force you to slow down, and I'm not willing to slow down as well. Gabriel asked me how I'd be at supporting you after the baby was born if I wasn't supporting you well now, and he asked me whether I would be able to spend much time with Tia if I couldn't reduce my hours now. I told him that I'd be there for Tia, and he asked me why I couldn't be there for you if I could be there for our baby. He also asked me how I'd find the time to be there for Tia if I didn't make any changes. He said it didn't happen by wishful thinking."

"Ranger, I know that you are doing the best that you can. I know how you are struggling with the rapid growth of the company, and personally I think you are doing a difficult job well. I understand all that."

"Gabriel said that I wasn't paying enough attention to your needs, and I can see that. You shouldn't have to be understanding about my crazy work schedule. You shouldn't have to put up with being on sick leave all by yourself, day in and day out. It is easy for me to get too focused on the job. Gabriel called me a workaholic."

"You've been trying to take more time off. We take Friday and Saturday and Sunday nights off now. You were already busy, but with this merger you are even busier. I understand that it isn't always going to be like this."

"That's what I said to Gabriel."

"What did he say?"

"He asked me what was going to change. He said my growth showed no signs of stopping and unless I consciously make a change, nothing will change and I will remain just as jammed when the baby is born as I am now. He said that I feel bad for missing out on Julie's childhood, but if I don't make changes, I will miss out on Tia's as well. The only difference is that I won't have the excuse that she lives in another state."

"Whoa. He was really hitting below the belt, wasn't he?"

"The thing is that he's right. He asked me what the most important things are in my life. I said, in descending order, you, then Tia and Julie, then my family, then my company and then my friends. He told me to start acting like it."

"I think I have the same list."

"The difference is that you act like it. You do everything possible to help me. You are doing whatever you can to make sure the baby is okay. You will be a great stepmom, and you are always there for your family. You are a dedicated employee and a good friend. You are able to do it all and are able to balance out everything."

"I don't know about that. We both work similar hours."

"The point is, babe, that I'm not doing my part. I just want to tell you that I realize that, and I'm trying to take steps to change it. I don't want to miss out on Tia's childhood as well. I have already missed out on so much."

I leaned over and kissed him. "You won't", I said. "This is too important to you."

"But what happens if I expand beyond the addition of Wes's company?"

"Do you want to?"

Ranger paused. "I don't know. I like doing system design, and if I expand any more, I won't be able to do system design at all. However, there is something rewarding about seeing a company you've started become a multimillion dollar company, and about knowing that you are providing the food on the table and the roof over the heads of hundreds of people. This company is much more than a paycheck for me. It's more than something I've started; it's more than my income. It's my baby. It's a responsibility and a duty as much as it's a joy. I want to see my baby grow and develop, and I want to be the person to take it to the next step. Does this mean that we'll expand again? Probably. If I can get it right this time without it killing us, I probably will. I just have to get it right this time." He put the last of his cut vegetables in his mouth and chewed. I looked down at my container sadly. I had vegetables left, but no dip. I pushed my dipless vegetables over to Ranger.

"Ranger", I said, "you'll get it right, and I'll help you as much as I can. You just have to tell me how. I want to be supporting you just as much as you are supporting me – and you are supporting me far more than you are giving yourself credit for. There is a reason I picked the song 'When You Say Nothing At All' as the song to be played after the wedding ceremony was finished. I think of that as our song. Do you remember the words? 'The smile on your face lets me know that you need me, there's a truth in your eyes saying you'll never leave me, a touch of your hand says you'll catch me if I'll ever fall, you say it best when you say nothing at all.' Ranger, I love you, and you have always been there for me. Yes, I don't do well being bored and, although Dr. Wilson thinks my life is stressful, I like my life. I'm reducing my hours and my team is slowly making their way through the backlog. It is requiring overtime, but we are doing it. I think that we have the right number of people currently for the amount of work coming in. I'm complaining because I am bored but I'm also complaining because I miss the work and because I am terrified that I'm going to hate having a baby and its resulting need for me to slow down." Tears came to my eyes as I leaned against Ranger's arm.

He pushed himself back from the breakfast bar and pulled me into his lap. "Babe, you're going to be a fabulous mother. You are kind and compassionate, loving and fair. You will adore our baby, and you will never resent her for taking you away from your work. You are, instead, one of those people who will just figure out a way to have it all."

"You are the same. You care deeply about all people, and there is no one you care for more than me and this baby. Don't worry. You will find a way to have it all."


	10. Chapter 10

I pulled a pink wrap top and a pair of black skinny dress pants out of the closet. I had bought both a suitable blue top as well as a suitable pink top to go with my pants, and I had planned on wearing the top that corresponded with the sex of the baby to the dinner party. I smiled anxiously. I hadn't met some of Ranger's family, and I was nervous about that. I had barely met Rachel and Ron, and I was nervous about that too. It had been, so far, a trying day and I could only hope that it would get better soon.

After lunch, Ranger had to go down to the office to clear off his desk so that he could be away for the next week. I had a nap and, when I woke up, I had a long hot shower, dried my hair, put on a full amount of makeup rather than my usual swipe of mascara and lip gloss, and just as I finished that Ranger came into the apartment to have a quick shower of his own. He got out of the shower again just seconds after he jumped in. I figured it was the shortest shower that I had ever seen. I decided we must have been only five minutes early. I shook my head. Any later than ten minutes early and Ranger thought that we were late. I could hear him run the water in the sink so that he could shave.

Ranger quickly finished shaving, and I could hear him let out the water and rinse the whiskers from the sink just before he came into the dressing room. He pulled a black t-shirt and a black cashmere sweater from the shelves, and pulled out a pair of wool dress pants. He looked over at me as he dressed. "You look fabulous", he said.

I tiptoed up and gave him a kiss. "So do you."

Ranger gave a half-smile. "I'm not dressed yet, babe."

I grinned. "I know." I rubbed off the lip gloss from his cheek.

Ranger's watch alarm went off, and he stepped back and finished dressing. I walked out to the front hall, slipped on some heels and my winter coat, picked up my purse, and was ready at the door by the time that Ranger walked out of the bedroom seconds later. He put on his own coat and a pair of dress shoes, picked up his keys and his wallet, and held the door for me as I left the apartment.

As we took the elevator down to the basement, I said, "did you finish the work that you had hoped to get done today?"

Ranger smiled. "Yes. I'm in a good position to leave for a week, but Tank always knows that I can be reached by cell phone. The only day when that would be a definite no-no would be when we are getting married, and Tank will be there for it."

We left the elevator and Ranger settled me in the passenger seat. He closed the door to the car and walked around to the driver's side, slid into the car, started it up, backed out of his parking spot and drove out of the Rangeman underground.

"Where have you arranged to stay when we are in Miami and Atlanta? I'm sorry. I've been leaving all of the honeymoon plans to you, and that's not really fair."

"I don't mind. I've left all the coordination of our wedding plans with my mother to you." He paused. "In answer to your question, when we're in Miami, Rangeman has an apartment much like our apartment will become after we move to the residence building. Dignitaries and celebrities looking for more security than is available at the standard hotel use it. Russ has booked the apartment for us."

"That will make it easier when you work with Russ."

"It will. When we go to Atlanta, Wes has booked us a suite in the Four Seasons. It's beautiful there, and I think you'll like the hotel very much."

"I'm sure I will."

"I haven't been in Atlanta for a couple of years. It will be interesting to see the changes."

"Is it a nice city?"

"It is, but it has a lot of crime. That's sad, as it detracts from the beauty of the city. The flip side, of course, is that it is good for business."

"Do they have any afterschool clubs that are focused on getting kids off the street?" I asked. I had just found out a month before that Ranger was a founder and an active member on the Board of Directors for Ase, an afterschool club funded by local Trenton businesses that focused on athletics, music, art, peer tutoring and other activities. In the program, kids were able to participate in a variety of activities as well as get a healthy afterschool snack. The program was totally free and open to kids from grades one up to grade twelve, and high school students were encouraged to volunteer with the younger kids and help out any way they could. It was a great program which had resulted in youth crime going down dramatically.

Ranger had been embarrassed about telling me of his involvement in the program. Personally, I thought it was something to be proud of. He not only gave of his time, but he also gave of his money. He donated twenty percent of his net income to the program. Of course, he donated another five percent to the TPD for upgrades to their staff equipment as well. He wasn't, however, a part of the Civilian Board of Directors for the TPD. I asked him one time why not, and he said that he didn't agree with civilians overseeing the police department. He said it would be like asking a real estate agent to oversee a doctor's work – because they had no knowledge of the medical field, they could not adequately judge the work or understand the challenges faced by the doctors. He also said that, although he would have a better idea as to what the police were facing, he didn't want to take the time to train the other people on the Board. I could see his point.

However, Ranger was more involved with Ase, and like his strong belief that he should donate money personally to the program, he believed strongly that his corporation should donate money to the program as well. Four percent of his corporate net revenues were donated to the program. Three percent were donated to the TPD for equipment, and another three percent were donated to the local hospital. Rangeman was, in fact, the leading donor in the community for the Ase program and it was largely through Rangeman's donations that the program was being supported.

One of the changes that Ranger was hoping to make to Wes's company was the donation of ten percent of his corporate revenues for each of the cities, to be split between the local police department, the local hospital, and to the local Boys and Girls Clubs for each city that he was operating in. Wes hadn't believed in donations and hadn't given any of his corporate profits to charity at all.

"They just have a local chapter of the Boys and Girls Club, and the program is doing good things in the city. They don't have enough money, however, to do all the different programming that Ase offers. Because of the Trenton community, Ase has a lot of funding that the local chapters of the Boys and Girls Clubs don't have."

"I think a lot of that funding is because of you."

Ranger flushed. "I don't know about that. I just think that the Trenton community, for whatever reason, has donated more."

"Ranger, between you personally and the company, you donate well over a million to each of the three charities you focus on and you regularly speak at various functions to try to drum up more donations. Yes, the Trenton community is generous. However, you are one of the most generous donors. Yes, you can give credit to the Trenton community, but you shouldn't disregard all the work that you are doing."

"I'm not doing anything special."

I put my hand on his thigh. "You are an incredibly special person who does a lot of good in this world. I am proud to know you and even more honored that you have asked me to share my life with you."

Ranger interlaced his fingers with mine and lifted my hand up to his to kiss it. "I love you too", he said. "So damn much."

I smiled. "Who said anything about loving you?" I said. I grinned. "I said I was proud to know you, and that I was honored to be sharing my life with you…"

Ranger thought about smiling. "You'd better love me. After all, on Monday you'll be promising to love and obey me and I would hate for you to be lying in front of God."

"I'll promise to love and cherish you. Obeying you might be a little too much to ask."

Ranger laughed.

"Did you see the vows that I thought would be appropriate for us to say to each other? The officiant said that he needs the vows sent to him by Sunday."

"I looked at them. I thought they looked good, and they really encompass how I feel about you." He lifted my hand and kissed my knuckles again.

I looked at him softly. "That's how I feel as well." I paused. "And they don't say anything about obeying you in them."

Ranger laughed. "Can you send them to the officiant?"

"I'll do that right now." I sent through the vows and smiled. They really were perfect.

Ranger glanced over at me. "Did your vows say anything about obeying the first time?"

I grimaced. "They did. The priest who married us was an old-fashioned priest, and he wouldn't take that line out of the vows. After we were married, Dickie told me that I had to do what he told me because I had promised to obey him in front of God. I told him that he wasn't doing his part of what he had promised, so why should I obey him?"

"What did he promise?"

"To love, cherish and worship me. I didn't see any worshiping going on, and he definitely wasn't cherishing me. For that matter, I don't know if he loved me. Of course, now that I know what love is, I realize that I had never loved Dickie either."

"I could promise to worship you easily. And I would mean it."

"I hate to tell you, but there is no way that you'll ever get me to promise to obey you."

Ranger laughed. "You won't even do it when it is for your own good."

"You make me sound spiteful."

"No, but I found out about your call to Miguel before lunch. You were supposed to be resting."

"I was. I just needed to clean up the outstanding issues with Miguel before I was able to take the next two weeks off. I didn't do the work that I had intended to do this afternoon."

"I know, babe, but I asked you to take the time off for a reason, and making work calls wasn't it."

"Yes, but you should be glad. I was telling Miguel that he was taking over the department a few hours early and that I wouldn't be doing those capture plans that I had promised him yesterday that I would do. I also had to tell him all the administrative things that he had to do since I wouldn't be doing them this afternoon. It was a fifteen-minute call that let me avoid three hours of work."

"I understand. Just because the doctor wants you to take the time off, it doesn't necessarily work out that you can easily do so."

"That's it exactly. However, I didn't think he'd mind since I was taking the next week off and he told me that I could work fifty hours a week. This week I have only worked forty."

"So I should be happy that you weren't working more?"

I smiled. "Exactly."

Ranger shook his head and huffed out a laugh. "I think, babe, that you could sell refrigerators to Eskimos. You have a way of making the most preposterous ideas seem like good ones."

"What's preposterous about working forty hours in a week instead of fifty? That's well within the parameters that the doctor set out."

"Yes, but it isn't within the parameters that we agreed to. You need to relax, babe. And if you take the next month off and relax and you are able to bring your blood pressure down, we'll start to add work into your schedule again. But I have to warn you. The doctor doesn't want you working more than fifty hours in a week. I don't want you working more than forty, and since I sign your paychecks I have a say in the number of hours that you work."

"I don't understand what I'll do with all my extra time. I don't have to do laundry since Ella does it. I can't start buying things for our new place since it hasn't been built yet. I can only do so much planning on how our new apartment is going to look like, and I have already done a lot of the work in creating storyboards on Pinterest."

"Why don't you create a cheat sheet with pictures from your storyboard and a source for each item that you want to include in our new apartment? Create a budget of what you think we should spend and where we should spend it. That should take some time to do but, more importantly, it will be a big help when we are ready to purchase the things for our new house."

"Don't you think that I'd be jumping the gun?"

"To tell you the truth, I think it would be incredibly helpful. By the time we are ready to do the shopping, you'll be back at work and we'll have Tia to look after, and our time to do things like shop will be limited."

"I was hoping that we'd do that shopping together."

"When Ella was working with the decorator in the apartment design, the decorator presented two or three different options to Ella and Ella chose from those. Why don't you come up with three options for each thing, select your favorite, and show them to me with your recommendation? I already know that I like your taste. You've been showing me your storyboards as you have been creating them, and I have liked almost every picture you have shown me."

"If we did that, it will primarily be my taste in the apartment."

"I like your taste. You have good taste."

"That's true. After all, I picked you."


	11. Chapter 11

I stayed near Ranger for the majority of the party. Although my nerves quickly dissipated, most of Ranger's family wanted to congratulate the two of us and it just made sense that I should stay close to Ranger and let them congratulate us at the same time.

The dinner was served buffet-style, and there was so much good food there to choose from I was very thankful that I was no longer suffering from morning sickness. My only complaint was that I didn't have enough of an appetite to sample every single offering. There were over twenty different dishes. Ranger's family had pulled out all the stops, and everybody was in a party mood. I had only been at one party like that before, and it was the Thanksgiving party that Ranger's family had thrown the November before. My family also held big parties, but we had ours on July fourth and the party consisted of my uncle firing up the barbeque and serving cheeseburgers and hot dogs, my parents bringing some salads from Giovichinni's, and my cousin Vinnie's family bringing a few buckets of fried chicken from Cluck-in-a-Bucket.

As I filled the last tiny space on my plate with food and followed Ranger over to the tables, his Aunt Tia and Uncle Alejandro waved us over. Ranger redirected our path towards them, and when we got to the seats that they had saved for us, he put his plate down and held out a chair for me.

"I'm so pleased to meet you before the wedding", said his Aunt Tia. "We've been hearing about you from Lucia, and you sound like the perfect person for our Ricky." Lucia was Ranger's mother. "She told us of the first time they met you. Apparently you were chasing a skip?"

I smiled. "Yes", I said. "She had been someone who wasn't legally allowed to solemnize marriages. She had been arrested for it, but despite being arrested she was still marrying people. She married Mama's and Papa's neighbor." I had asked Ranger's parents whether I could call them 'Mama' and 'Papa' when Ranger and I had gotten engaged, and I had been calling them that ever since. Since I called my own mother and father 'Mom' and 'Dad', calling them 'Mama' and 'Papa' were two names that were unique to them. They had been thrilled that I had asked. "I saw her when she was leaving the house and chased her. She had been eluding me so I was very happy to have been able to capture her."

"Do you know what happened to her?" said Uncle Alejandro.

"No." I smiled. "But I know who isn't solemnizing our marriage." Aunt Tia and Uncle Alejandro laughed. "I can also guarantee you that I inspected the papers giving the officiant the right to oversee our marriage. I wanted to ensure that the marriage would be valid."

"I wasn't exactly sure why you did that", said Ranger, "since we aren't technically getting married. I mean, we will be in the eyes of the church but we won't be in the eyes of the law."

"I don't understand why you don't just get married", said Aunt Tia.

Ranger smiled at the diminutive woman. "I have made a lot of enemies when doing security work. I've put a lot of bad people in jail, and I've stopped a lot of bad people from doing bad things. Those people that I have thwarted in the past could want revenge and, although I don't care what happens to me, I care very much what happens to Steph and the baby. If someone wanted to hurt me, they would just have to threaten or hurt Steph. If there was a direct, obvious relationship between the two of us, the bad guys could target her. By not recording our marriage with the government, we are trying to hide that relationship as much as possible."

"But surely they will figure it out when you are known as being common law partners", said Uncle Alejandro.

"Actually, to continue in trying to blur the lines a bit, Steph's official address is her old apartment and there is no formal link between the two of us other than employer and employee. We won't be claiming the tax deduction associated with being common law partners."

"I won't be changing my last name either", I said.

"That's an old-fashioned thing to do anyway", said Aunt Tia. "If I had to do it again, I wouldn't change my name either."

Uncle Alejandro turned and looked at her. "You wouldn't? But Manoso is a good name, a proud name."

Aunt Tia smiled. "Yes, it is. But Johnson is a good name and a proud name as well, and I don't think I should have had to change my name when I got married. I did a lot of good things as Tia Johnson, things to be proud of. And then Tia Johnson no longer existed and it was like all those things were erased. I would never change my name again."

Uncle Alejandro smiled. "That's good, because I'm never giving you the chance to." He leaned over and kissed his wife on the nose.

She looked at him with a soft expression on her face. "I may have hated changing my name, but I have never regretted marrying you." She grinned. "Even if marrying you meant that I became Tia Tia in Spanish."

Ranger laughed. "And that's why we call you Aunt Tia instead", he said.

Uncle Alejandro smiled, finished his meal, sat back, and stretched his arm out behind his wife and rested it on the back of her chair. He turned to us. "I hear that you're having a girl?"

"What are you planning on naming her?" asked Aunt Tia.

Ranger looked at me with a half-smile on his face.

"Actually", I said, "we were wondering if you would mind if we hijacked your name. We were thinking of naming the baby Tia Rose after you and Grandma Rosa."

Aunt Tia's eyes filled with tears. "That would mean a lot to me."

Ranger looked at his aunt and uncle. "Without you, I don't know if I would have excelled in the way that I have. I don't know if I would have had the self-control and determination to do well in the army, and I don't know if I would have had the self-confidence to open my own business and make it into something worthwhile. You turned a scared and overwhelmed punk-assed kid into a contributing member of society. We would like to honor that through the name of our daughter."

Aunt Tia sniffled and Uncle Alejandro smiled through his tears. "You were always a good man", he said. "Nothing's changed. We just gave you the opportunity to make a fresh start."

"It meant everything to me", said Ranger. "Living with the two of you and Grandma Martina gave me that fresh start. You were always there with your encouragement, and Grandma Martina was always there with a swift slap to the back of the head." Uncle Alejandro laughed. "I needed both."

"You know, she never stopped slapping me on the back of my head either", said Uncle Alejandro.

Ranger laughed.

When we finished dinner, Ranger's mother and father carried out a large sheet cake with 'Congratulations' written across it. Everyone quieted as Ranger's dad stood up to say a few words. "I know that Steph can't have dark or milk chocolate", he said.

I groaned. "And I hope this baby knows what a sacrifice I am making." Everybody laughed.

"We have made this cake for you to wish you well. I know that Steph has been enjoying fresh fruit, so this is a strawberry and white chocolate cake. Lucia and I aren't bakers, so we hope this dessert turned out."

"Mateo should know if it did", said Ranger's mom. "He tasted the cream filling many times as we were making it."

"What?" said his father. "I needed to make sure it was turning out okay."

"That would have been something he would have gotten a smack on the head for if Grandma Martina was here", said Uncle Alejandro.

I looked at Ranger, and he was smiling.

"Anyway, the point is that we are all happy, Ricky, that you have found such a wonderful person to share your life with. Stephanie is strong and sensitive, loving and caring, honorable and fair, beautiful and smart. She is the perfect foil for you, and I know, with my heart of hearts, that you'll have a good marriage, a long and happy marriage, together. You will be wonderful parents but, more importantly, you'll be wonderful with each other."

"We'll save the speeches for the wedding", said Ranger's mom. "But we just wanted to say, at this family celebration, how happy we are that you're getting married on Monday."

"And Cecelia wants to say how happy she is that you are having a little girl", said William. Cecelia hid her face in her father's shoulder as everyone looked at her.

"Cecelia", said Ranger, "you told us before that you wanted another little girl so that you could play dolls with her. We tried our best to help you out."

As Cecelia said thank you, Carlos said, "can your next one be a boy?"

I groaned. "Let me get through this one first."


	12. Chapter 12

Rachel and Ron followed Ranger home in their car. I gave them my pass key so that they could park in the underground, and Ranger used his on the security gate. Julie came back to the apartment with Ranger and me, and although I wanted to stay awake to talk to Julie I slept on the way back in the car. Ranger liked to play classical music in the car, and that mixed with the warm heat and the darkness outside meant that I was soon dozing. I woke up as Ranger pulled into our parking space, and he got out of the car and directed Ron and Rachel to a good spot for them.

"I'm sorry for falling asleep", I said to Julie as we got out of the car after Ranger.

"Dad said that you are sleepy with being pregnant, because you have to sleep for both you and the baby."

"That's true. Since I sleep a lot, I hope this means that the baby will sleep a lot as well."

Julie smiled. "I'm looking forward to meeting the baby."

I smiled. "Me too."

"Dad said that I could come any time to spend time with you. He said just to let him know when and he'd book a plane ticket."

"That's true. We're always happy to spend time with you and we'd love to spend as much time with you as you have to give."

"Dad said that work has been very busy."

"Yes. He's in the process of buying another company, which means that things have been very busy. It's been hard for him, I think. He has been changing from a security specialist who has been doing all the jobs in the company to an executive who is managing all the people who are doing the jobs in the company. That has its challenges, and he has been on a ninety-degree learning curve. Speaking as an employee, he is doing a good job. However, as his fiancé I know that what he makes look easy is actually a challenging thing to do."

"Is he good at what he does?"

I smiled. "Your dad is the best. He has developed some of the most complex and secure systems in the country. As far as the services we offer, he is known as one of the best in America. As far as being a boss, your dad has a large staff that is very happy. They feel valued and rewarded, and everyone feels very lucky to be part of your dad's operation."

"Is everyone busy? I know you said that Dad is busy."

"With our company growing so fast, everyone is struggling to keep up. However, your dad was working fourteen hours a day. However, he has recently reduced it down to an average of twelve hours a day for every day except Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. On those days he only works eight hours a day."

"So he'll be working this weekend?"

"No, not with you here. He wants to spend as much time with you as he can."

Rachel and Ron and Ranger joined us, and together the five of us walked to the elevator. "Did I hear right that you own the whole building?" said Ron.

Ranger smiled. "We do. The building is a mixture of office space and residences. I don't know if Julie told you, but in another month or so we'll be breaking ground for another tower. The new tower will become just residences, and our existing tower will be renovated so that it will become dedicated office space."

"What kinds of offices do you have here?" asked Ron.

"The offices themselves are just offices, but we also have some unique work spaces and training facilities. For example, we have a shooting range so that staff can keep up their skills, and we have a control room, a room that has all the hardware and software needed to do all our monitoring for clients and staff. We also have a large equipment room that would outfit us adequately for any zombie apocalypse."

The elevator opened on the first floor and Hector got on. He was just coming from the gym. Rachel's eyes bugged out at seeing the tattoo sleeves on his arms, his shaved head and the teardrop tats under his eye. She moved a little closer to Ron.

Hector nodded to Rachel and Ron, and turned to Julie. "Hey, Julie", he said. "What's shaking?" He performed one of those complicated handshakes and fist bumps that I had never been able to figure out the movements to.

"We're here for Dad's and Steph's wedding."

"You are?" said Hector. He turned to Ranger and grinned. "You never told us that you were getting married this weekend. The staff will have to throw you a party."

I laughed. "And that's why we never told you."

"Damn, that just made my day. How come we weren't all invited?"

Ranger smiled. "And that is the other reason we didn't make it common knowledge."

Hector laughed. "Is Tank going?"

"Yes. Ella and Luis and Tank are the only Rangeman staff members who have been invited."

"So your time away? It's for a honeymoon? I thought it was for the purchase of Pearl Security."

"It is, but it will also be our honeymoon. We're combining the two together."

"That's a pretty sucky honeymoon." I could see Ranger tense. "You should go somewhere warm, somewhere where there is sand and sun, and get out of this cold for a week or two."

"Ranger and I are way too busy to do that", I said.

"You should never be too busy for a honeymoon", said Hector. "This is the start of your life together."

"I think we started our life together a while ago", I said as I gestured to my stomach with a laugh.

Hector made a face. "Can you renew your vows with the staff watching when you come back? I won't be the only person to be upset that they missed the wedding."

"That's an idea that we hadn't thought of", said Ranger. "Having another wedding isn't a bad idea."

"Then we could have a party. We haven't had a party since you made Sales buy the whole staff pizza." Shortly after I had started full-time at Rangeman, the staff in Sales were objectifying me and placing bets on who could get me to date them. They became a nuisance and, when Ranger found out about the pool, he blew up. He and Andy, the Sales Director, told the staff that they had to stop betting on me as if I was a piece of meat and that the money they had collected was going to be used to purchase pizza for the whole company for lunch. We'd had a party and I was the guest of honor. We'd had a good time.

"That's true. That's something I'll talk about with Steph."

Hector smiled as the doors opened on the fourth floor. "I have to go. I have to be on shift in another half hour, and I need a shower."

I looked at him and smiled. "I hadn't wanted to mention it…"

Hector grinned and kissed me on the cheek, shook Ranger's hand, wished us congratulations again, and left the elevator.

As the doors closed, Julie looked at Ranger. She looked upset. "I'm sorry, Dad. I thought everyone knew."

He smiled. "That's okay", he said. "Steph and I weren't exactly keeping it a secret. We just weren't telling too many people. They would have found out eventually when they saw the ring."

"They did know that we planned on getting married", I said. "They just didn't know when it was going to happen."

"Are you really going to consider having another wedding?" said Rachel.

"I don't know", said Ranger. "That is something that Steph and I have to talk about."

"Your staff seemed very happy about the idea of you two getting married", said Ron.

"We're a close staff here", I said. "I know the Operations' guys the best since that is where I work, and they are like brothers to me. Now that I'm a director, I'm learning all the Administrative and Support Services staff. They seem to be a good group of people as well. Hector was speaking the truth in that it probably did make his day learning that we were getting married."

"That's nice that you have support like that", said Rachel.

"It is", I said. "I can predict that this baby will have many, many overprotective uncles and that she will be well loved."

"The guys are nice, Mom. I met lots of them when I was here on my Christmas holidays."

"I'm ashamed to admit that I was a little nervous around Hector", said Rachel. "Are all your staff like that?"

I smiled. "I was always a little nervous around Hector as well", I said. "However, despite what the tattoos would suggest, Hector is a pussycat. He's a very caring person, extremely family-oriented, and is one of the most loyal people that I have ever met. Some of Ranger's staff are preppy boys, but some look like they have come from gangs. While they may differ according to looks, the one thing that they all have in common is that they are all caring and loyal. There isn't one person on staff who wouldn't give their life for Ranger."

I looked up at Ranger, and he flushed. "I don't know about that", he said.

"One of the reasons people are so loyal to Ranger is his humble attitude and his obvious respect and appreciation of every single staff member."

"How many people do you have on staff?" asked Ron.

"Including the security guards, I have over two hundred on staff here in Trenton, and another two hundred in Miami. When we take over Pearl Security next week and add another five cities to our arsenal, we'll have about fourteen hundred between all seven locations."

"That's a large staff", said Ron. "Are you sure this building will be big enough to house your various functions?"

Ranger smiled. "You have to remember that over half of that staff are security guards, and the only reason they ever come into the offices is for their annual training – and that doesn't happen at all the same time. In a class there are only ten people at a time. Training takes a week. We have a conference room dedicated as a training room."

We arrived at the seventh floor and exited the elevator. Ranger unlocked the door and entered the apartment to turn on the lights. Rachel and Ron entered after him, followed by Julie and me. I looked at Rachel's and Ron's face as they took in his apartment, and apparently they were just as gobsmocked as I was the first time that I had seen it.

Ranger appeared to be a hard and uncompromising man. I had discovered that to be a front. He didn't sleep on a rocky ground and he didn't eat bugs for dinner. Over the years he had morphed from a tough street kid to a tough but savvy and sophisticated businessman, and nothing showed that shift as much as where he lived. When you entered his apartment there was an antique hall table that was always graced with fresh flowers and a silver tray for his keys. To the right of his front hallway was a large kitchen that was every cook's dream. It featured upscale appliances from a warming drawer to a refrigerator with an automatic water dispenser. While Ranger's kitchen was a dream to work in, our new apartment would be more so. It would have a built-in microwave, double ovens, a warming drawer, a refrigerator with water and ice dispensers and a see-through door to view the foods inside before you opened the door up, and a tap for instant boiling water, in addition to the more common features of a dishwasher and gas stove. Like Ranger's existing kitchen, our new one would have granite counters, although the granite counters in Ranger's existing kitchen were dark with dark wood cabinets. In our new kitchen the cabinets would be farmhouse cream with creamy beige counters.

The kitchen in Ranger's existing apartment was separated from the dining room by a breakfast bar, and off the dining room was a large living room. Attached to the living room was our office and Julie's bedroom.

On the other side of the apartment was a powder room leading off the entry hall, the master suite with a dressing room and ensuite, and the nursery. The entire apartment, except for the office, Julie's room and the nursery, was painted a chocolate milk color with black accents. The office, Julie's room and the nursery, however, were painted a pale cream. The apartment was large – well over three thousand square feet – and extremely comfortable and luxurious. It was the biggest home I had ever seen.

Of course, when the new apartment was built it would be even larger. Planned to be about double the space of our existing apartment, it would have five bedrooms and a nanny's suite, an office each for Ranger and me, a living room, family room, dining room and sunroom, and an enormous kitchen and laundry room and powder room. Off the apartment would be a large wrap-around belvedere. The place would be a mansion in size. I was just relieved that Ranger had supported me hiring a cleaner to look after the place. Personally, I found the idea of keeping that much space clean to be overwhelming.

Julie carried her things into her room, looked around, and turned to her mother. "My bed is a king", she said, "and the sofa is a queen. Why don't you take the bed and I'll sleep on the pullout?"

"Is that alright?" said Rachel. "I don't want to throw you out of your bed."

"It's totally alright", said Julie. "It just makes sense."

"Thanks, Jules", said Rachel.

Julie smiled at her mother and picked up her bag. She carried it into the office and put it down. Vanessa had already made up the sofa bed and left it out, and Julie smiled. She walked out of her room as I put the kettle on for some peppermint tea.

Rachel yawned and stretched. "I don't know about you guys, but I'm beat", she said.

"That's because you were so excited about this trip that you didn't sleep last night", said Ron with a smile.

"Besides, you were nervous about meeting Steph again", said Julie.

Rachel turned red as I looked at her. I smiled. "Glad I'm not the only one", I said.

"You were nervous about me?" said Rachel in surprise.

I could feel myself flush. "It's important to me that we get along well and that we become friends", I said. "I want to be a good stepmom, and I don't think I could be if we don't get along well."

Rachel smiled and came over to me to give me a hug. "I think that we'll get along just fine", she said.

"Can I stay up and have tea with Steph?" Julie asked her mother.

Rachel smiled. "You can, but don't stay up more than another half hour. I don't want you to be too tired in the morning. Your dad is taking us to Sahara Sam's Indoor Waterpark."

"You'll like it there", I said. "It's nice and warm and, when you are looking outside from the waterpark you can see the snow outside. It is decadent."

"Aren't you coming?"

I smiled. "Unfortunately, waterparks aren't good for pregnant women. I'll stay at home and rest up for a wicked game of Monopoly when you get back. Last time you were here you creamed me, and I think I will need my sleep to be able to keep up."

Julie laughed. "I've been practicing."

"Oh, no! I haven't been", I said with a laugh.

"Don't worry, Jules", said Ranger. "You can always sleep in the car. It takes an hour to get there."

Rachel laughed. "That sounds good", she said. "I forgot how cold it was in New Jersey at this time of the year. I had to buy a winter jacket but, to tell you the truth, they don't sell winter jackets warm enough in Florida. When we got Julie's last fall, we had to order it online."

"That makes sense. I personally love online shopping anyway. I have just found it to be a little dangerous. I spend too much money when I am shopping online. I have to make a strict budget and force myself to stick to it, and if I am doing something like shopping for Christmas, I have to make up a spreadsheet and record everything I spend."

Rachel smiled. "That's what I do as well."

"You two are so boring", said Julie. "I just like going online and spending money."

"Yes, that's fun", I said. "But money isn't infinite, and eventually you have to pay the bills. It is better if you don't carry a balance on your credit cards and, if you can do it, it makes sense to never spend more than you can easily pay off."

"It also makes sense if you can save at least ten percent of your gross earnings towards your future", said Rachel.

"I'm looking forward to getting a job", said Julie. She turned to me. "Mom and Ron say that I am too young. I'm not too young, am I?"

"Yes, you are. Enjoy the time you have before you have to start working. It's time that you don't get back. You have to remember that, when you are working, you still have all your school responsibilities. You still have all your chores to do at home, and you still have all your other responsibilities. What you'll have less of is free time. Time to hang out with friends or time to watch television. Time to read a book or to sit and daydream. That time is important."

"You said it", said Ranger.

I made a face at him.

"I'm going to get ready for bed", said Rachel. She gave her daughter a kiss. "Don't stay up too late." She disappeared into the bathroom and Ron disappeared into the bedroom.

Julie turned to me. "While the tea is steeping, would you mind if I used your computer?"

"Not at all." I retrieved my computer from the office and brought it into the kitchen, set it up on the breakfast bar and typed in my passcode. I left her to check her email or whatever she was doing and poured us each a cup of tea.

Ranger kissed Julie on the top of her head, came into the kitchen to kiss me goodnight, and wished us a good sleep. "I know that you slept this afternoon and again in the car, but please don't stay up too late."

I smiled at him. "I'll see."

Ranger huffed out a laugh and kissed me again, and turned around and entered the master bedroom.

I looked at Julie, and she looked a little upset. I worried for a minute that she was upset by Ranger showing me affection, but then I remembered that she had only looked pleased about it when she had been here before. I picked up the cup of tea and carried it around the breakfast bar to place beside the computer. As I did so, I looked down and read the screen. I got just a few lines in before Julie clicked out of it. It was enough. It was a message sent over Facebook that was asking Julie to meet him so that they could 'fuck' and, just before Julie had clicked out of the message, I saw a picture of Julie standing in a room naked. "Jules?" I said. I carefully moderated my voice. Inside I was freaking out. She was just a little girl. Yes, she was thirteen, but she was definitely not old enough to be receiving emails like that. "What's going on?"

Julie turned red. "I goofed up", she said.

"Tell me." I sat down at the breakfast bar.


	13. Chapter 13

"I was on Tinder, and about three weeks ago I responded to an ad by this great-looking guy. He was fifteen and I thought that he was just interested in a friendship. We started talking and, when I trusted him, I gave him my Facebook site. I also told him the community we lived in, although I didn't tell him what house I lived in or what school I went to."

"That's good, isn't it?"

"I don't know how, but he found me anyway. He's been sending me pictures of me. You just saw the last picture, didn't you?"

"I did. Have there been other pictures?"

"Yes."

"Are they other naked pictures?"

"Some. There are pictures of me in the bathroom, pictures of me in my bedroom, pictures of me in the schoolyard, and pictures of me getting out of my mom's car and going into the house. I was so glad to get up here so that I was away from him."

"It must be horrible, never knowing if he is around and taking pictures of you."

"It is. I feel like crying all the time. I'm always nervous, you know?"

"I know."

"Don't tell my mom or my dad, okay?"

"Why not?"

"He told me that he'd kill my mother if I told anyone about the pictures and the things that he was saying."

"Jules, I'm sorry, but I have to tell your mom and dad. This is exactly the kind of thing that they need to know about. First of all, this is the kind of person that your father excels in capturing and putting in jail. Secondly, your mom needs to know that there is someone taking pictures of you and is taking pictures of her. She needs to know that for her own safety as well as for yours."

"I don't want to admit to them that I made a mistake. I never should have trusted him."

"Mistakes are easy to make. You have learned from this one, and it's a mistake you'll never make again." Tears came to Julie's eyes and flowed down her cheeks. I reached up and cradled her cheek in my palm, and swiped the tears away with my thumb. "Sweetie, you making a mistake isn't a big deal. There isn't anyone in this world who hasn't made a mistake in their lives before. However, this person needs to be stopped. What he is doing is a criminal offense and if he is doing it to you, he is probably doing it or has done it to other people as well. You need to stop it."

"I just don't want them to be disappointed in me."

"I can't speak for your mom, since I don't know her well, but she doesn't seem like the kind of person who would get mad at you for making a mistake. However, I can speak for your dad and tell you that he will have the utmost respect for you if you stand up, say this isn't right, and do what it takes to put this guy in jail. He understands that isn't easy and he admires anyone who can make the difficult decision to do that."

Rachel came out of the bathroom with her toiletry bag in her hand, and as she walked by I said, "Rachel, we need to talk. We need a family meeting right now, and this needs to be something Ron is involved in. I'll get Ranger."

Rachel looked at me in surprise, and Julie looked at me in supplication. "Steph", Julie said as she beseeched me not to say anything.

"I'm sorry, Jules. This is something that your mom and dad and Ron absolutely need to know, and this is something that needs to be addressed. This is not your fault."

Julie's eyes filled with tears again, and I patted her on the shoulder as I walked into the bedroom. Ranger was just getting into bed. When he looked at me and saw the expression on my face, he said, "what's wrong, babe?"

"We need to have a family meeting right now."

"Is everything okay?" said Ranger as he climbed out of bed again.

"No", I said. Ranger looked at me, and I shook my head. "Come on."

Ranger followed me out of the bedroom at the same time as Ron and Rachel walked out of theirs. Julie was still sitting there looking shattered. Ranger looked at his daughter, and then looked at me. "What's going on?" he said. His voice was calm and controlled, and Julie sniffled and looked down at her hands.

"Jules?" I said.

She shook her head.

"Do you want me to tell them?"

"Yes, please", she said in a small voice.

"Jules was on Tinder and met a boy. He said he was fifteen. She gave him her Facebook contact information. Although she didn't give him her address or tell him her school, he was able to figure out where she lived. He has been taking naked pictures of her through her bedroom and bathroom windows, and has been stalking her and sending her inappropriate messages over Facebook. Julie was afraid to tell anyone because she thought that you'd be mad at her for giving out as much information as she did."

"And because he said that he'd kill Mom if I told anyone", she said.

"Jules, don't ever be worried about telling me anything like this. This is important information for me to know", said Rachel.

"Jules, internet stalking is a real and terrible thing, and it happens to good people", said Ranger. "You are not the first person that this has happened to and I suspect that you aren't even the first person this boy has done this to. I'd be surprised if you were even talking to a fifteen-year old boy. You should never be ashamed to say that you were a victim. You aren't the one that made the mistake. That boy or man was the one that made the mistake. Only be ashamed if you don't do something to stop it from occurring again."

"I just didn't want you to be mad at me", said Julie.

"I'm not mad at you", said Ranger. "I'd only be irritated with you if you didn't let us do something about it."

She looked down at her hands. "He said he'd hurt Mom if I ever mentioned this to anyone. If I let you do something, Mom will die."

"Jules, you are smart enough to know that he is just saying that to try to hurt you, to try to control you", said Ranger. "Just because he says that your mom is in danger doesn't mean that she is. Just because he is a stalker doesn't mean that he's a killer."

"Jules, can we show Ron and your mom and your dad the pictures?" I said.

"It would help me out immeasurably to see the photos and read the emails", said Ranger.

Julie looked at him for a moment, and Ranger looked steadily at her. His quiet confidence and professional authority swayed her, and she pulled over the computer and clicked into Facebook Messenger again. Within seconds, Ranger scrolled up to the top. He started reading the messages and looking at the pictures. Rachel and Ron and I looked over his tense shoulders.

The pictures were shocking. The stalker had been able to get much closer to Julie than I personally had comfort in knowing. But while the pictures were shocking, so were the written messages. The man was crude and inappropriate for anyone – let alone a thirteen-year old girl – to have to read. By the time Ranger got to the end the man was threatening to rape Julie and her mother if she didn't meet him at the local playground.

As we finished reading, I looked at Rachel and Ron. Rachel was crying. Ron was white-faced. "Oh, pipsqueak", said Rachel as she put her arm around Julie's shoulders. "You should have told me."

"But Wyatt said that he would kill you if I told you."

"He's just saying that, Jules, to get you to do what he wants. Isn't he, Ranger?" Rachel sounded as uncertain and frightened as Julie, and I was glad that Ranger had the background and know-how to be able to deal with the threat.

Ranger nodded. "Jules, you have done the right thing by letting us know. He's not going to rape you or your mother, or kill anyone. First of all, you're up here and he's in Miami, so he can't get to you for the next few days. By the time you return, I hope that he'll be caught and put in jail."

"I've just been so scared."

"Stalking is a scary thing", I said. "I've been stalked before. It is terrifying. But I also know that your father is on the job, and I know that he always gets the man responsible."

"Can I get someone to go into your Facebook account and download your messages?" said Ranger. "I'll have someone trace the person sending them and figure out who this person is. Somehow I doubt that it is a fifteen-year old named Wyatt."

Julie nodded and, when Ranger gave her a pad of paper, she wrote down her username and password.

Ranger thanked her, then retrieved his phone and sent Leo a message. Leo was the Director of Cybersecurity and was a brilliant hacker. Tracing who this person was would be child's play for him. "It's late", he said. "I don't anticipate that Leo will be able to get back to me about this until sometime tomorrow. Why don't we go to bed and all get a good sleep?" He turned to Julie. "You did the right thing by letting us know. You are taking the steps needed to ensure that he will never do this again. I admire you for that. I know that it isn't easy."

"You're not mad?"

Ranger smiled softly at her. "Not at all. Because of you, we'll catch a criminal that needs to be taught that what he is doing isn't appropriate."

"I shouldn't have given as much information out as I did."

"No, but it's a mistake that you'll never repeat. You giving out information wasn't the problem. The man taking that information from you is the problem. And that's what you are going to stop."

Julie turned to her mom. "Can I sleep with you tonight?" she said.

"I'll sleep on the pullout", said Ron.

Ranger's phone buzzed with an incoming text, he quickly read it then looked up at me. "Leo was still up, and he said he would do the tracing prior to going to bed tonight." I breathed a sigh of relief. If Leo couldn't find him, the man didn't exist. "I have told him just to identify the man, and you'd do the investigation into him."

"You're going to let me do work?" I said with a smile.

Ranger huffed out a laugh. "Yes. You're our best researcher. More importantly, perhaps, is that I know that you're upset about what has happened, and being able to take positive actions will make you feel better."

"Are you not supposed to be working?" said Rachel.

"We just found out today that Steph's blood pressure is high. We are hoping to control it through lifestyle changes", said Ranger. "I have put her on sick leave for the next month."

"You're right, though, in that I will just worry and my blood pressure would be lessened by being able to do something constructive rather than sitting by the sidelines wishing I could help." I thought I would get that in there before Ranger rethought about and took back his decision to let me do the work.

"I'm sorry", said Julie.

"Sweetie", I said, "never be sorry for asking for help when you need it. This is not your mistake and you are not at fault."

"But I could be making you sick."

"I'm not sick", I said. "My blood pressure is just a little higher than it is supposed to be, and your dad is being overprotective and is fussing about nothing. The doctor said that I was cleared to do fifty hours of work in a week. I have only done forty this week, and I can guarantee that the research into this man's life will not take an additional ten hours. There is nothing to worry about."

Julie looked at me and assessed the expression on my face. She must have decided that I wasn't just saying it, as she nodded once.

"Get some sleep, pipsqueak", said Ranger. "Tomorrow is a new day, and we should have some answers by the time we wake up." He pulled her into a hug.

"Thanks, Dad, for not being mad. I've been so scared."

"Do you feel better now?" said Ranger.

Julie paused for a moment. "I think I do", she said. "I feel like I'm not so alone."

"You are definitely not alone, Jules", said Ranger. "What has happened to you has happened to hundreds of thousands of people. You are just the smart one who is taking steps to stop this from happening again."


	14. Chapter 14

As I got into bed, Ranger pulled me over into a tight hug. "I want to get this bastard", he said quietly.

I settled myself so that I was facing him. I buried my nose in his chest and breathed in the smell of Bulgari Green, the scent of body wash that Ranger used that seemed to stay on his skin long after his shower was over. I let the scent comfort me, and I could feel my heart rate settle. "I know", I said. "So do I."

"I'm trying to rise above my anger. How could he think that it was okay to harass anyone that way, let alone a defenseless thirteen-year old girl?"

"I don't know."

"Anger is an unproductive emotion."

"Ranger, it's not unproductive if you do something with it. Yes, I'm angry as well. But I am going to do something constructive with it. I am choosing to research this asshole and provide you the information so that you can take him down. And when I do? You can use your anger to contact the police and follow him through the system, to make sure that he is punished for what he has done."

"I'll need to contact Russ tomorrow morning. I think I'll get our beefiest man on patrol in Miami to pay this asshole a visit."

I kissed him on his chest. "Now you are using your anger. Anger doesn't have to be unproductive. It can give you the focus and energy to do something about the situation. Don't beat yourself up because you are angry. Use it to accomplish something."

"I was thinking, if Leo is finished his search tomorrow, that I'd send Rachel and Ron to the waterpark with Julie, and I'd stay back and start to coordinate things with Russ."

"That's certainly your choice. If you think you'd enjoy it, go to the waterpark and have a good time. It will take me a few hours to do all the research I need to do and it will kill that time for you. However, if you are going to be at the waterpark and worrying about this the whole time, it makes sense for you to instead stay back here and get things done. You'll be able to contact Russ and contact the police, and to start things rolling with them. However, just be aware that there aren't a lot of things that you can do to move this case along until my research is done."

Ranger kissed the top of my head. "I know, but somehow I think it would be better for me to stay here. I would worry less overall."

"Do you think that Julie needs a bodyguard?"

"I doubt it. We are in a different city, in a different state, and unless the stalker knows that she was coming to Trenton he'll never be able to find her."

"Do you think that she should stay at the apartment here rather than go to the waterpark?"

"No. As you said, there's a lot of waiting around that needs to happen tomorrow. I'm hoping, for my own sanity, that we can partner up in researching this man. I know that you'll find the information, sift through it and write up a report. I need to, myself, sift through the information as well. I need to read every single little tidbit about him so that I know what kind of person he is, where he spends his time and his money, and what his loves and dislikes are, everything."

"You need to climb inside his brain."

"Yes. I need to understand him, need to be able to predict his next move."

"You're hunting him."

"Damn straight. And I am a very good hunter."

I smiled and kissed his chest again. "So am I", I said.

I could feel Ranger smile as he kissed me. It's true – I was a very good hunter. I just wasn't as good at knowing what to do with them when I had found them. Luckily, Ranger was quite capable. He always knew exactly what to do with the assholes when they were caught.

I cuddled into Ranger, and as I settled into sleep I could feel the tension leave Ranger's body. The last thing I heard was Ranger's sigh as he settled into sleep himself.

Ranger woke me up in the middle of the night by moaning with a nightmare, and I carefully kissed him awake. "It's okay", I said as he woke with a start. "You're okay." Ranger rolled into me and hung on tight. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"I had the dream again where you get shot, only this time you're with Julie and baby Tia, and all three of you get shot."

"That's not going to happen", I said. "First of all, Arlen James is in jail." He was the person who had shot me. He had been arrested with irrefutable proof, and in a move that surprised me, the judge hadn't granted him bail. I had thought that, because Arlen had three little children and his wife had just died, the judge would have awarded him the option to make bail. I had thought wrong. "Second of all, you'll make sure that Julie is safe. This is what you do, Ranger. You keep people safe and you are one of the best in the world at doing it. Your abilities won't change just because it is your daughter. You have a mission, and you'll do it well."

Ranger sighed. "I'm just worried. What happens if I freeze?"

"I know you're worried, and that's okay. You won't freeze. You have never frozen when I've been in danger, and you have lots of experience with that."

Ranger thought about that for a moment. "Thanks, babe", he said. "I needed that."

"We'll get this bastard, Ranger. And we'll do it in a way that ensures that he will be in jail for a long time."

"I'm looking forward to it."

Ranger didn't say anything else, but he continued to hold me tightly as I fell back to sleep.

About two hours later, I woke as Ranger extricated himself from my grip. I looked at the clock. It was four in the morning. "You okay?" I said as he climbed out of bed.

"Shh. Go back to sleep. I'm going to the gym to work out. I need to work on the heavy bag to achieve some calm."

"Did you get any more sleep after your nightmare?"

"No. I just enjoyed cuddling you."

"Oh, boy. You're going to be tired today. Did you decide whether you are going to the waterpark?"

"I'm staying back. I would just upset Julie and Rachel and Ron if I accompanied them today, and there is no point having them stay here worrying when they could be having fun."

"I didn't take you as a waterpark person before."

Ranger smiled. "I'm not, but if that is what it would take to make Julie happy, I'd be a waterpark sort of person. I much prefer the visit to the Liberty Science Center that we have planned for tomorrow."

"So let's work on this case today, and go to the Science Center tomorrow. I haven't been there in years, and I have to admit that I am looking forward to it myself."

Ranger smiled. "I can imagine that you'd like the Science Center. You are such a curious person that you'd like to know how everything works. I hope our daughter takes after you. She'll be the smartest child ever if she does."

I laughed in amazement. Ranger had called me smart in the past, and I personally couldn't see it. No one, other than Ranger, had ever called me smart before and it was a hard thing for me to accept.

"I think, if she's smart, she'll be taking after you and not me. You are one of the smartest people that I have ever met."

Ranger huffed out a laugh. "Apparently we can be each other's fan club."

I laughed.

Ranger went into the bathroom and finished up, then walked into the dressing room and changed into workout gear. He came back into the bedroom, kissed me and wished me a good sleep, then left the master bedroom.

I tried to go back to sleep, but I was wide awake. I was worried about Julie and I was worried about Ranger, and lying in bed doing nothing wasn't good for me. I flipped and flopped for a few minutes, but when I heard someone rustling around in the kitchen I decided to get up for the day.


	15. Chapter 15

I finished in the bathroom, wrapped Ranger's housecoat around me, and walked into the kitchen. Rachel was searching through the fridge and freezer. "Can I help you find something?" I said.

Rachel stood so fast she bonked her head on the top of the refrigerator. "Oooph", she said as she rubbed her head. She turned red as she closed the door of the fridge. "I was looking for some junk food. When we were together, I thought it was so cool that Ranger didn't eat junk and that he regarded his body as a temple. Then, after a while, it just pissed me off. I always thought he was looking down on me for eating junk, and I love my junk food." She paused. "I'm sorry. That was probably inappropriate considering that you're marrying him."

I laughed. "I totally know what you mean about junk food. When Ranger and I were friends and I would come to visit, I would bring my own junk food and leave it on the counter. Ranger got tired of looking at it, so he gave me a cupboard of my own." I walked over to the upper cabinet by the refrigerator. "This is my cabinet, and I'd be happy if you helped me eat some of this. I'd especially be happy if you ate everything with chocolate in it, as with being pregnant I'm not supposed to be eating chocolate and it's just about killing me to see it all here and not be able to touch any of it."

Rachel smiled. "That is one of the tougher parts of pregnancy, isn't it? I could put up with the backaches and the insomnia, but the no-chocolate thing was hard."

"I used to live on coffee as well. Now I have to drink decaf and, I have to admit, I'm sleeping a lot more. Ranger puts that extra sleep down to being pregnant. I put it down to a lack of caffeine."

Rachel laughed. She pulled out a bounty of chocolate bars, candy-coated peanuts, Tastykakes, Cheez Doodles, corn chips and a small bag of raisins out of the cupboard.

As I put on the first pot of coffee of the day, I said, "so did you just have a sudden craving for chocolate at four in the morning?"

"I'm a stress eater", said Rachel. She opened a chocolate bar and took a bite and moaned in happiness.

I laughed. "So am I", I said. "Last May I had to shoot someone in the line of duty. It wasn't the first time that I'd had to shoot someone to protect myself, but for some reason it really affected me that time. I gained about ten pounds in a very short period of time. I didn't just eat a lot of chocolate. I ate a lot of everything. It was fun going on but was a bitch coming off again."

"Did you ever get it off again? I mean, you don't look overweight at all."

"Yeah, I got it off. Ranger had me exercising each day. He said it was a condition of my employment. I said it was a pain in the ass and called him some choice names. However, he told me that he'd get me a dessert after dinner for each time I exercised. Over time, I didn't eat as much junk but I continued exercising with him. By the time I got pregnant, I weighed about the same as I had the year before, but I had gone down one dress size and I noticed, when I was chasing skips, that I wasn't nearly as out of breath as I had been."

"What exactly do you do?"

"I have two jobs. The first is my job as a bounty hunter. I do that job for Vincent Plum Bail Bonds. I find people who have skipped court and return them to the system. I've been doing that job for about four or five years now. The second job is the job I do for Ranger that I've been doing since last May or so. I research companies and individuals to find out all their secrets, and we use that information to tailor a sales pitch to them, or to find out security risks, or to identify where people are hiding for when we want to pick them up. Finding this guy who has been stalking Julie is exactly the sort of thing that we do." I snagged the bag of corn chips and opened it up. I popped a couple in my mouth and handed the bag over to Rachel.

"Oh, no, thanks", said Rachel. "You still have four more chocolate bars here to consume." She grinned. "And I would be a bad guest if I didn't help my host out."

I laughed. I opened the bag of raisins and put one in Rex's dish. Rex was my hamster, and I loved him very much. He had been with me for years. He was a present from my grandmother when she thought I was getting too lonely. She said that she had given up on me ever getting a man, so she'd give me something else to love. For years I told her that Rex was better than any man anyway. My mother didn't agree with that thought. Neither did my grandmother, but she was more willing to accept the sentiment.

I had often said that, if I could get a man as loyal and as loving as my hamster, I'd marry him in a heartbeat. My mom took that to mean that I was marrying my hamster, and she had always been scared that I would send her a 'just eloped' postcard with a picture of Rex and me on it. I have to admit that I had thought of doing just that. Now that she knew I was marrying Ranger, she was ecstatic to know that I was marrying a live human. The fact that she liked him was an added bonus.

After I put the raisin in Rex's dish, I added a corn chip and watched Rex run over and try to stuff them both in his cheek pouch at the same time. After a bit of finagling on behalf of the hamster, the food fit in and, with his whiskers vibrating in excitement, he ran to hide his food in his little plastic igloo that Ranger had bought him.

"Who will look after your hamster when you are away?" said Rachel.

"I'm taking him to my parents' place", I said. "My grandmother loves taking care of him or, at least, she does as long as she doesn't have to clean his cage. She said she did enough of cleaning up poop when she had babies and now that she is older, she doesn't want to do it anymore. I immediately asked her then whether we couldn't count on her to look after our baby if we needed her to in a pinch. She didn't however think that would be a problem. So apparently a baby girl is far more attractive to my grandmother than a hamster."

Rachel smiled. "I can understand that. There is something magical about babies. After I got together with Ron, we tried for several years to have another child. It just wasn't happening. We got tested, and Ron apparently had mumps as a child and as a result he was shooting blanks. We thought about going to the sperm bank, but we eventually decided that Julie was enough for us and, as Ron says, he looks upon Julie like one of his own anyway."

"From everything Julie has said, she looks upon him as her father as well."

"She looks upon Ranger as her father too. She just has two, and I think she's the richer for it."

"I can see that. They both have great qualities that make them special to her world."

"I guess what I am trying to say is that I think Julie will benefit from having both of us in her life as well. You are a good person, Steph, and I know that Julie already loves you and loves spending time with you. I'm glad for a whole lot of reasons that you are marrying Ranger, and one of them is for Julie."

"I've been so worried that I'll be seen as the evil stepmom."

"First of all, no one could ever think of you as evil. Secondly, Julie likes you and you like her. That is apparent in the way you treat her. She's not going to think of you as the evil stepmom. And thirdly, why do you have to be a stepmom? Can't you be just Steph, a weird mix between being a parent and being a friend? I'll tell you the same thing I told Ron when he was worrying about being a good stepfather, and that's to relax. Julie likes you and you'll forge your own relationship with her, a relationship that will be unique to the two of you. Julie is now thirteen, so the relationship you forge with her won't probably be as much of a parent, and that's okay. Julie is mature for her age and can use some adult friends who have good heads on their shoulders. She needs someone to provide support more than guidance, and I think you'll do well in the role."

"Do you think so? I've been losing sleep over it."

"Julie has a big heart, and she is excited that you are getting together with Ranger."

"Ranger said that you had said that she wasn't her normal exuberant self."

"Now I know why. It was worry over that bastard that had her so anxious. It wasn't over your marriage. She's happy for you but, more importantly to her, she's happy for her dad and she's thrilled for herself. She is hoping that she'll be able to spend more time here now that you are together with Ranger."

"How do you feel about that?"

"Honestly? It seems a little strange to think that Julie has another woman in her life. But I am thrilled for Ranger's sake that she wants to spend more time with him. Ranger and I didn't work out, but that doesn't mean that I don't have a lot of respect for him. Ranger is a good man, an honorable man, who has tried to do right for our daughter despite the difficulties in doing so. When he was in the army, he wasn't often stateside. When he was, though, he always made a point in making sure he spent some time with Julie."

"He cares very deeply about her."

"I know that, which is why I'm shocked that he isn't already out here working on her case rather than sleeping."

I laughed. "Ranger woke up at two with a nightmare about Julie and he couldn't go back to sleep again. He is now in the gym working out some of his anger on the heavy bag."

"He was angry? He looked so calm and cool about it last night."

"That's his persona. It's part of the reason that he is so good at what he does. Because of how he acts, people think nothing will faze him, and that you can tell him anything and it won't bother him. That, no matter what, he will be able to roll with the punches. He hides a lot under the surface, however. He was upset last night with the situation. He is worried about the potential for Julie to get hurt, and he is worried about the impact that this will have upon Julie. But most of all, he was angry at the man and wants to find the man and take him out the back to beat the shit out of him."

"He won't do that, though, will he? I don't want him to get into trouble."

I laughed. "First of all, if Ranger decided to eliminate someone, there would be no way to identify him or to trace what he had done. He's that good. Second of all, Ranger believes in the justice system. He has worked within it for years and he believes in what it can do. He realizes that, if he assaults the felon, he is no better than the felon himself. Ranger believes in karma, and he lives his life as honorably as he can. This means that he will find the person and capture him to hand over to the police. He will do that because it is the right thing for him to do."

Rachel breathed a sigh of relief. "Ranger and I are better friends than we were a married couple, but I know him fairly well and I know what that would do to him to kill another person."

"It isn't anything that he hasn't done before." In fact, I was pretty sure he had killed someone once for me, someone who was threatening me and wouldn't leave me alone. I wasn't sure though. He had never said and I didn't want to ask.

"But in Ranger's mind, it won't matter how much the man deserves it. It won't matter who he has done this to in the past and who he is currently doing this to. Ranger would look at another kill as another black mark on his soul."

"That's true."

"So what is the process that you'll follow?"

I got out the cream and sugar and milk, and poured a cup of coffee each for Rachel and me. "Leo is a Director of Cybersecurity and is the best hacker that you could ever meet. He can find out every secret you wished had remained hidden and then some. Ranger sent Julie's Facebook account information to him last night, and he was following the thread in reverse to see what he could find out about this Wyatt. Doing something like that is totally legal and is what the police would do."

"Maybe we should let the police deal with this then?"

"The police are notoriously overworked and understaffed. If we can do the work for them and hand it to them, they will be greatly appreciative."

"Okay, so when you've identified the man, you can go and arrest him?"

"We want to tie this up nice and tight so that the man can't get free and out of jail, or so that the case isn't thrown out for a lack of evidence. Leo, our Director of Cybersecurity, has designed a search engine that is more powerful than anything else that has been developed previously anywhere in the world. That search engine can relatively easily and relatively quickly find out everything about you. Again, the way it goes about it is perfectly legal but it is effective and invasive, and it will find out everything about you from your shoe size to the date your husband proposed. I don't know how it works. I'm not a computer genius like Leo. I just know it does."

"What kinds of things will it be able to find on this guy?"

"So Leo will tell us the man's identity, and I will use our program, In-Spect, to research the man. I will come up with everything from the titles of the library books he took out to the number parking tickets he has had. By the time I am finished, I will have accumulated pages and pages of research. Much of it is non-essential, but you never know what is considered important. We once had a man who didn't return his library books and, when I read the titles, it became apparent that he had murdered his wife. He had taken out books on different poisons and, guess what? He poisoned his wife. The shoe size might be related to some physical evidence that was at the scene. His credit card receipts will show where he likes to frequent and what he likes to spend his money on. His internet usage will show what sorts of things he likes to look at, what he likes to do when he is surfing, and who he converses with. There will be an arrest history on the man, an outline of everything he has been suspected of in the past as well as everything he was arrested for. It will take me about five hours to do the research." I was a little hungry, so I went to the freezer and pulled out a loaf of orange-date quick bread that Ranger had baked the weekend before. I put it in the microwave to defrost. "Ranger was hoping that you and Ron wouldn't mind taking Julie to the waterpark without him today. He wants to stay at home with me and go over all my research, and work with Russ, the Executive Director of our Miami branch, and the police in Miami."

"Will he be able to find the man?"

"My guess is that Leo has already found the man."

"Can't we just confront him?"

I smiled. "There is a process that we have to follow if we are going to get this man convicted for what he has done, and that is what we want. We want him imprisoned so that he stops doing it to Julie, but also so that he can't do it to anyone else either."

"What will Ranger have to do with the Miami police?"

"As I find out information, I'll be feeding it though to Ranger and Russ. When the report is finished, Ranger and Russ will talk to the Chief in a conference call. They will send the report through to the Police Chief and the police chief will then pass the case down to the detective in charge. And after all that happens, the Miami police will be able to arrest him. But we will have done a lot of the work for the police, and we'll have tied up the case nice and tight so that the police have little to do."

"You are legally taking him out the back and beating the shit out of him."

I laughed. "Exactly." I took the bread out of the microwave and put it on a breadboard, took a knife and sliced a couple of slices. I put one on a plate and handed it to Rachel.

"Julie will be disappointed about Ranger unable to make it, but I'm sure she'll understand. We talked a little bit last night when we went to bed. She said that she'd been terrified that the man would kill me, and although she knew that it would be a bad thing to meet with the man, she was worried enough that she was considering meeting with him."

I could feel myself pale.

"I have to thank you for figuring out what was wrong. I had noticed that Julie was quieter than usual lately. She was more emotional and crying more. I was worried that she was upset about Ranger marrying, but whenever I asked her about it, she said she was very happy for him. And then she seemed so happy to be coming up to the wedding that I believed her. She told me last night that she feels relieved knowing that Ranger now knew. She has confidence that he will stop this man from harassing her."

I smiled. Ranger would definitely stop him. He would figuratively beat him senseless, and then mop the floor with his body. In short, that man was marked for dead, and he didn't even know it. I didn't feel sorry for him, even though I knew the shit storm that was coming to him. That bastard deserved every minute of pain that we could serve him.


	16. Chapter 16

By the time I'd had a long visit with Rachel and a shorter shower, I was starting to feel tired again. I debated about lying down for a short nap when I heard Ranger come into the apartment. He sounded surprised to see Rachel up, and even more surprised when I walked out of the bedroom fully dressed. "Hey, babe", he said. "Is everything okay?"

"Absolutely. Rachel and I have been bonding over mutual worry."

"There's nothing that links people together like your daughter being stalked?"

I huffed out a laugh. "Did you get a chance to work on the heavy bag?"

"I did, and Hal came into the gym as I was winding down on the heavy bag so I sparred with him for a while."

"Did you talk to Hal about what was going on?"

"I did. He said to let him know if there was anything he could do to help."

"I'm not surprised that he was supportive."

Ranger smiled. "Me neither. He is one of the most supportive people that I have ever met and, in fact, that was one of the reasons that I selected him to be the Vice-President." He followed me into the bathroom and stripped off his clothes. As he jumped into the shower, he asked me to get him some clothes for the day. "Uniform or civilian clothes?" I said.

"Uniform, I think", said Ranger. "It's comfortable." I smiled. I hadn't expected anything else. Ranger liked wearing and was proud to wear his uniform. He also might be spending time in his office, and he tried not to go down into his office unless he was dressed in a uniform, whether that was a casual uniform of fatigues and a shirt and hoody, or his formal uniform of a black suit. I doubted that he'd wear his gun belt though. It was just as well. With the mood he was in he might go down to Florida and use it.

Ranger left the shower and dried off, put some hot water in the sink and proceeded to shave his whiskers off. I sat on the counter and watched him, and I could see the residual anger in his eyes, as well as the tiredness in the slope of his shoulders. I felt bad for him. Just before Christmas, I had been shot in that bank robbery. Then, in January, my bodyguard had been shot when he was guarding me. It had been luckily a quiet month ever since, but Ranger had been poised for something else to happen. His adrenal glands were working overtime. And now another danger had appeared. This time it wasn't to me, but it was to a member of his family and Ranger's emotions, already raw, were irritated further. I wondered how much he could take before he exploded.

Ranger looked at me and smiled. "I'm okay, babe. Although, Gabriel is working today and I have booked an emergency appointment with him."

"Are you feeling a little overwhelmed by everything that has happened?"

Ranger stopped and considered that for a moment. "Yeah, I guess that's the best word for how I feel. I just feel a little like I need a break and I want off this ride. I'm not sure if I can take much more before I explode." He flushed as he put his razor away, wiped the remaining flecks of foam off his face, let out the soapy water and washed the whiskers away, and dotted on some shea aftershave and rubbed the lotion in.

"I understand", I said. "It will be great to get away for a few days and relax for a while. I hope that we'll have a smooth honeymoon."

"I still feel guilty that it's a working honeymoon. You deserve better than that."

"Ranger, I'm happy with the honeymoon that we have planned. I don't have a maternity bathing suit and I don't particularly care to get one. I'm not a big fan of the heat, although I am looking forward to spending time in Miami and Atlanta. I have never been to either."

"What are you planning on doing when you get there? After all, if I am working I don't want you bored."

I smiled. "Don't worry about me. In Miami, Rachel said that she and Julie have the week off, and they'd be happy to take me around the city to look at the sights while we are there. As for Atlanta, I thought I'd take a bus tour of the city to see the sights. I always think that it's a good way to investigate the city for the first time."

He leaned forward and kissed me. "You're amazing, you know? You always have a way of taking a bowl of lemons and making lemonade. I love that about you."

I kissed him. "And I love how protective you are and thoughtful of my feelings and my wellbeing. I love you."

Ranger gave me another kiss and just as it was getting interesting, he stepped back. He kissed me on my nose. "As much as I would like to follow this up, we have a houseful of guests who probably have hungry bellies, and I need to cook breakfast."

He dressed in the clothes that I had selected, and looked at me again. "I love you", he said. "I just want you to know that."

I eased off the counter, wrapped my arms around his waist and hugged him. "I know", I said. "I love you too."

I kissed his shoulder and stepped back, and Ranger took his dirty clothes and put them in the hamper. We left the master and walked to the kitchen. Ranger turned to Rachel. "I was planning on making breakfast right now, but it will take a while to cook if everyone wants to have their showers now. The bathroom will be free for the next little while."

"Thank God", said Rachel. "I hate not having a shower when I get up."

Ranger smiled. "I remember."

Rachel grinned. "And I remember that you are a good cook. What are we having for breakfast?"

"Sticky buns and a fruit salad and hard-boiled eggs. I have already made the sticky buns and they are ready for baking. I put them on the counter to come to room temperature before I went down to the gym."

"Sounds yummy. Julie loves sticky buns."

Ranger smiled. "I know."

I set the table and put out the butter dish, the salt and the pepper. My portion of the meal complete, I sat down at the breakfast bar with another cup of coffee.

Julie wandered out of the bedroom yawning, and came over to her father to give him a hug. "Hi, Dad", she said.

"Hey, pipsqueak. Did you have a good sleep?"

She yawned again. "I did. I had a bit of a hard time falling asleep, but once I did I slept well. Did you?"

"It was okay, thanks."

"What are we having for breakfast?"

"Sticky buns, fruit salad and hard-boiled eggs."

"Alright!" said Julie. "Your sticky buns are awesome! I remember when you made them over Thanksgiving. They were the best sticky buns that I had ever had."

Ranger smiled. "And that's why I made them for you again."

She gave him another hug and came over to me. "Did you have a good sleep?" she said. She gave me a hug as well.

I smiled. "It was great until four, when I woke up and couldn't sleep any longer. So I got up for the day and found that your mother wasn't able to sleep either. So we had a nice yap. It's been a lovely morning."

"My mom is a nice person, isn't she?"

"I suspect that your mom and I are going to become good friends. I like her a lot."

Julie looked at me with her head cocked to the side. "I can see that", she said after a minute. "You both care about people, and you are both very kind. My mom is the kind of person that adopts people into the family, and my friends all like to come to my house. They tell my mother all their problems. You're the same. Tia's friends will all like to come to your house as well. You'll make them feel welcome. Just like you've made me feel welcome."

"I'm glad you feel welcome. As far as I'm concerned, this is your second home."

"My best friend has a stepmother, and her stepmother isn't very nice. She doesn't like her much. I tell her about you, and she agrees with me. I'm very lucky."

I gave her another hug, partly so that she wouldn't see the tears in my eyes. "I'm very lucky to have you in my life as well", I said as I sniffled.

"Dad said in the car that, when Tia is born, I might be able to come up for a few weeks this summer so that I can meet her."

"We'd love to have you come to stay for as long as you have to spend", I said. "I don't want to be greedy with your time or make you feel like you have to spend time here, but if you want to be here we'd love to have you stay."

"So if I wanted to stay for the whole summer?"

"Your dad and I would be thrilled."

"I'd like to spend time with my sister."

"We'd love for you to spend time with her as well. You'll be a great older sister and I already know that she will love you very much."

Julie smiled. "Is my mom in the shower?"

"Nope", said Rachel. "I'm out."

"Great! Can I have a shower then?"

"Sure can", said Rachel. "How soon until breakfast?"

"About forty-five minutes", said Ranger.

"Lots of time for me to wake up Ron then", she said. She looked at me. "Julie and I are morning people. Ron, not so much. He could happily sleep until ten or eleven each day."

"I totally understand", I said. "I'm a sleeper as well and love to sleep in."

"I probably stopped you from sleeping then, this morning", said Rachel. She looked upset.

I smiled. "No", I said. "I was already awake when I heard you, and I knew that I wasn't going back to sleep. You just kept me company and kept me from blowing my brains out with worry." Rachel looked relieved. "After I finish doing my research, I'll have a nap for a while."

"That's good. It may have been a while for me, but I remember how tired I got during pregnancy."

"See?" said Ranger. "I told you, babe, that it wasn't the lack of caffeine."

I laughed.


	17. Chapter 17

Rachel and Ron and Julie left for the waterpark shortly after breakfast. Ranger had told them that he would clean up the kitchen when they were gone. He said he needed something to do while I was starting my research.

After they left, Ranger put the kettle on for a cup of peppermint tea. The early morning mixed with far too much coffee had left my stomach upset, and I thought the peppermint tea might calm it down again. It couldn't be a lack of sugar. I'd had two sticky buns at breakfast. As Julie had said, they were delicious. I comforted myself. Since I had gotten up at four, it was like an early lunch for me.

I set up the computer on the breakfast bar and clicked into my email. Ranger had forwarded the name of the man. Patrick Fernandez. I felt the familiar anticipation associated with looking into a particularly heinous criminal, with knowing that the work that I was doing would cause the felon to be caught and punished.

I opened In-Spect, our in-house designed search engine, and inputted his name. Pretty soon I had information spitting out at me and, as I started to read, I said, "oh, crap."

"What's wrong?" said Ranger as he washed down the counters.

"A few things", I said. "First of all, like we suspected he is not a fifteen-year old boy. He is twenty-nine. Secondly, he is also a known pedophile. He has sexually abused three young girls before, all under the age of fourteen, but – and this is why I said 'oh, crap' – he has gotten off his charges each time because he has diplomatic immunity. Because they have not been able to charge him, he isn't registered on the sex offenders list."

"Shit. What country is he from?"

"Honduras."

Ranger smiled in relief. "I am friends with the President in Honduras. At one point, his daughter was kidnapped by a drug lord and my team was sent in to retrieve her. We did so. His daughter had been tortured. When we retrieved, her, we killed everyone in the drug lord's compound. The daughter saw all the dead people when we were pulling her out, and she said that would make her feel safer when she was back home again. I personally was the person who carried her out and her father said that he owed me a favor. If he could recall this asshole and charge him, I would consider the favor to be fulfilled in full."

"Have you kept in touch with him?"

"I have. He's a good man doing a difficult job. We've become, in many ways, friends over the years. When I met him when his daughter was kidnapped, he wasn't very important politically. I've seen him rise on the political ladder until he is now the President. He's doing the best he can to clean up his country."

"Do you know many presidents?"

"A few. I especially know the ones in Central and South America."

"Have you met our President?"

"Not this one, no. I haven't done much work in the US. I've done some, but not enough to warrant meeting the President."

"What have you done in the US?"

"Remember those eco-terrorists that were threatening the pipe line? The government sent us in to stop them."

"Did you?"

Ranger looked at me. "Babe."

"Right. Stupid question."

Ranger thought about smiling. "Do you hear anything about them anymore?"

"Did you kill them?"

Ranger smiled. "No", he said. "There are more ways of encouraging people to stop doing what they are doing, legal ways, and we were brought in to bring them to justice."

I wanted to ask him what those ways were, but the In-Spect program beeped then to indicate that it was finished its search and I turned back to the document. I could ask Ranger later. However, this search couldn't wait.

I started searching through the documentation on Patrick. Ranger asked me to print off everything, and as I searched through the information I sent it to the printer. Shortly after I started to create my report and link evidence with information found on the web, Ranger left for his appointment with Gabriel.

There was a lot of information to look at. His father was the diplomat, but his entire family had immunity. Patrick had attended university on a ten-year plan and had graduated with substandard marks and a bachelor's degree two years before. His marks were even worse than mine, and that was saying something. I had graduated in the top ninety-eight percentile.

When he'd graduated, he had driven down from Washington, D.C. to Florida. It appeared that he had settled in Miami. Since he had been arrested for sexual offences in Raleigh, Columbia and Tallahassee, it appeared as though he was working his way down the coast. I didn't know if Miami was his favored destination or whether it was just another stop on his way, but I would be happy if he left again. I would especially be glad if he was recalled to Honduras. I suspected that the prisons weren't very nice there.

He liked porn and bought a lot of it. He frequented malls and other areas that teenagers congregated. He ate fast foods and he drove an expensive car.

I had wondered how he could afford an expensive car, and that led me to looking more in-depth at his bank accounts. He paid his credit cards on time and in full. His car was leased and he spent a lot on hotels and food. However, he had bank deposits of several thousands of dollars on a frequent basis. Generally, the amount of money was not the same each month, and the deposits weren't on scheduled days. However, there was a regular monthly income of five thousand dollars that was deposited on the last day of the month. I traced the deposits. The regular monthly income was from his father's pet food company – but as far as I could tell, Patrick hadn't done anything to earn that income. It was, instead, just money that his father gave him. I thought that was unreasonably generous and supremely stupid. A father should teach his child how to work and support themselves. Giving them sixty thousand dollars a year was not teaching his child how to be self-sufficient.

However, what were more interesting to me were the irregular large deposits. They only occurred in the town that Patrick was staying in, and they were cash deposits done at an ATM. I suggested to the police to access the ATM machines to get a video of Patrick making the deposits. I wanted to make sure that Patrick was the person with the money to deposit.

But that raised a question to me. Where was he getting the money to deposit?

I looked into the credit cards again. Something was niggling at my brain, and I was determined to find it. It wasn't jumping out at me though.

To keep it all straight – where he was and when he was there, as well as the bank deposits – I created a spreadsheet. I found that he had settled in seven cities on the way down from Washington to Miami. There were the three cities that he had assaulted the girls in, and a fourth city that he had settled in but left shortly after being attacked. He had a medical record of it, but at the time he refused to report it to the police. He had a broken clavicle, a broken arm, two broken ribs, a broken knee, a concussion and several colorful bruises from the encounter. I could be wrong because I was definitely jumping to conclusions, but it spoke of vigilante justice to me. Could there have been a fourth victim, besides Julie?

I sat back and thought about everything. Where was he getting that money?

I went through the police files on the past arrests. There was irrefutable proof that he was the predator who was involved. I made note of that under the 'Previous Criminal History' section.

I kept coming back to the question of where he was getting the money to deposit. I looked at his credit card receipts. About two weeks after he landed in every major city, he returned to Washington for an overnight trip. He stayed in a hotel rather than at his family home. That was curious as well. It happened, every single time, after every time he had settled in the city. That meant that he had done it seven times since he had graduated from college.

He had gone to Georgetown University and, in the ten years it took him to get his four-year degree, he'd had several irregular deposits. That was curious as well.

I smiled at Ranger as he entered the apartment. He looked more settled. "Good appointment with Gabriel?"

Ranger's eyes lightened as he looked at me. "Yeah. He made me grateful, once again, that you are in my life."

"Why's that?"

"You are doing everything you can to avenge the wrong that was done to my daughter. You did it when she was kidnapped a couple of years ago, and you are doing it again now. Thank you." He sat down at the table beside me.

"Hey, she'll be my daughter too, as of Monday."

Ranger smiled. "I'm so happy about that as well."

I smiled, leaned over and kissed him. "I can hardly wait", I said.

Ranger grinned. "How is the research going?"

"It's going well. I'm curious about a few things and am still following leads. I'll get back to you with what I have found in a few minutes."

"Okay."

I looked into the university newspaper for any articles about women being stalked. I found a few, but the stalkers identified weren't Patrick. However, as I looked in the newspaper, I stumbled upon an article talking about how drugs had been more prevalent in the last ten years than they had been previously. I sat back and thought about that.

"What is it, babe?" said Ranger as he noticed me thinking.

I pulled over my computer again. "Just a theory that I need to track down to see if it has any validity."

"Do you want to give me a spoiler?"

"Let me formulate it in my head first", I said.

I searched through the different cities, and looked at their drug charges for the months that Patrick had been there. In each case, drug-related charges had spiked for the weeks or months that he had been there. I made a notation on my report about that.

I thought about it some more, then looked into the shipments from Honduras to Washington in Patrick's name for the few days prior to the trips to Washington. He hadn't received any shipments, but his father had always received shipments of pet food a week before Patrick returned to Washington.

Just for shits and giggles, I searched up the drug-related charges that the D.C. police had made around the time of the shipments of pet food to Patrick's father when Patrick lived in Washington. It was hard to tease out as there had been so many shipments of pet food to the US from Honduras around the time that he was in university, and it was impossible to figure out whether there was a correlation in the time between the pet food shipments and the drug-related charges.

"Ranger? Can people smuggle drugs into the country using pet food?"

Ranger looked up at me in sharp interest. "That is actually a common way to smuggle in drugs. Mixing cocaine in pet food, packaging it, and shipping it by sea is usually how they do it when they use pet food. There aren't enough customs staff, nor is it practical, to inspect every outgoing shipping container. The shipments often aren't caught because of that. When the pet food gets to the US, the cocaine is chemically separated out from the pet food, purified, and sold on the street. Why? What have you found?"

I explained my theory that Patrick was shipping drugs into the US in pet food, purifying the drugs and taking them to the various cities. I showed him the increase in drug-related charges for the months that he was living in the cities, and I showed him his bank accounts and the regular and periodic deposits.

"So what you're saying is that we might have two issues – the drug trafficking and the pedophile charges?"

I sat back and stared at him. "Yes. I know in my bones that we are onto something big here."

Ranger smiled and gave me a kiss. "Good work, babe. Is it all in your report?"

"It will be in another fifteen or so minutes. I have it all documented aside for the pet food angle."

"Can you look into his father's life as well?" said Ranger. "I need to know if his father is an accomplice or whether this is going on without him knowing about it."

I finished documenting the information on Patrick, before starting to look through his father's background. His father owned a pet food company – legitimately – before becoming a diplomat. His father also got deposits into his bank account from three places. One was from the Honduran government, I would assume to pay for his diplomatic duties. The second was for his pet food business, although the pay from the pet food company was unusually large. Of course, what did I know? I never would have thought that Ranger earned as much money as he did either. The last deposits were many and irregular in both timing and amount, and they were deposited cash.

Like Patrick, the cash deposits into their accounts were in the tens of thousands of dollars each month. For Patrick, the cash deposits were made when he wasn't transitioning from city to city. They started approximately three days after he arrived back in the city after visiting Washington. For his father, the money influxes were larger and deposited by someone other than his father in the cities that corresponded with the cities that Patrick was living in. I could only assume that Patrick was the depositor, but that was something the police would have to check through surveillance cameras.

I added it all to the father's report and wrote a summary report for the two men. When I finished, I emailed the whole electronic file over to Ranger, pushed back from the table, and stretched. I looked at Ranger. He was focused and determined to bring the man to justice. I, however, felt as limp as a wet dishrag. I had just spent the last eight hours researching Patrick Fernandez's and his father's lives. I was pleased with everything that I had been able to find out, but with the early morning I was tired. Ranger looked at me as I printed off my twenty-page report and supporting documents and handed it to him, and he smiled. "Go to bed and have a nap, babe. Now it's time for me to get to work."


	18. Chapter 18

By the time I heard Julie walk into the apartment, all talking a mile a minute to her father, I had been asleep for an hour and a half. I pulled myself to my feet, used the facilities, and walked out to the main rooms. Ranger smiled at me as I returned. "How's it going?" I asked.

"Excellent", said Ranger. "I did good work after you went to bed, and I am now just waiting for some return calls." He turned to Rachel and Ron and Julie. "I'm sorry, but if I have some calls come in I have to take them."

"Does this have something to do about Wyatt?" asked Julie.

"After we all have something to drink and something to eat", said Ranger, "we'll talk about what Steph and I have found."

"I have to wait until after dinner?" asked Julie. She sounded disheartened.

Ranger smiled. "I was actually thinking about talking to you about it over appetizers, pipsqueak. I made some dip and cut vegetables, and some cheesy garlic bread, and some stuffed mushrooms to eat. That will put us on until dinner. Ella has made us macaroni and cheese since she remembered that you liked it so much when you were here last. However, I asked for her not to bring it up until eight as I knew that you would be getting back from your day's adventures late."

"Okay. So I don't have to wait?"

"No, you don't."

Rachel turned to Julie. "Go wash your hands for our snacks, and I'll pour you something to drink."

"How about hot chocolate?" I said. "It's cold out today."

Julie smiled and nodded as she washed her hands, and she dried them as I poured milk into a mug and put it in the microwave to heat. When the microwave was finished, I stirred in hot chocolate mix and handed it to Julie.

Ranger poured the rest of us ice water and added lime wedges. He put them on the breakfast bar to relay over to the living room, and took the garlic bread and the stuffed mushrooms out of the warming drawer. He put them on a tray with the cut vegetables and carried it all through to the coffee table. We sat down as I retrieved my report, and I looked over it to see if Ranger had added any further information. He hadn't, but I had a chance to review my work anyway. I had done a good job and I was thrilled with everything I had found out.

"After you left today, Steph started researching the man who has been stalking you. Leo found out last night that his name is not Wyatt. It is Patrick Fernandez. When Steph started researching him she found that he is a twenty-nine year old man from Honduras, who is here with his father. His father is a diplomat. When she looked into him further, she found that he had been arrested three times prior to conversing with you. Each time he had been charged with stalking and pedophile charges." Ranger saw Julie's look of incomprehension. "He not only has stalked other children", he said to her, "but he raped them as well. There is irrefutable proof. Each of the girls is under the age of fourteen."

"That's sick", said Ron.

"Yes, and he's gotten away with it because he has diplomatic immunity. He can be arrested but they can't charge him because of his connections to Honduras."

"My God! What are we going to do? He can't get away with this", said Rachel. Tears came to her eyes and she sniffled.

"He won't. So Steph looked into his life a little more, to try to get a feel for all the charges that we could potentially arrest him for, and we found out there are two separate criminal activities that he is involved in. The first is the connection to Julie and the other three girls. We think a fourth girl was approached by him, but instead of the police being called we think the family performed some vigilante action and took matters into their own hands. He was beaten pretty badly but didn't want to report the assault. Two weeks later, he had moved cities again."

"How many cities has he lived in?" asked Ron.

"He spent almost ten years at Georgetown University in Washington, and has spent approximately three months each in seven different cities since completing his degree two years ago last December."

"So you said that there is another charge, in addition to the stalking charge?" said Julie. I looked at her and smiled. Her analytical ability and talent at getting to the kernel of the truth was so like her father.

Ranger smiled. "In addition to the pedophile charges, there seems to be some strong circumstantial evidence that he and his father are drug traffickers."

"Circumstantial evidence – that means you can't charge him on it, can you?" said Rachel.

Ranger smiled. "No, but I have friends who can continue looking into it. The drugs are, if we are right, being transported into the country in pet food. The drugs are removed from the pet food and sold here. I have friends in the DEA who are intercepting the next shipment of pet food to test it. Other people are investigating the pet food plant to see if there are drugs being taken out of the imported food. I also have talked to the various police forces, and they are taking pictures of Patrick to their contacts to see if anyone recognizes him. That will be done over the next few days. If any of those leads pan out, we'll have irrefutable proof that he is smuggling drugs."

"Who are you waiting for calls from?" I said.

"I've already talked to my contact in the DEA and sent him your report. He was the first person I contacted, and as I said he is sending agents in to waylay and test the pet food. After I did that, I sent your report to the four police chiefs from Raleigh, Columbus, Tallahassee and Miami. I'm expecting calls back from each of them. I also have called my contact in Honduras. I talked to him earlier and explained to him what was going on. I explained our suspicions and how we got to them, and I sent him your report for his perusal. He said that he had an evening function to go to, but he would review it before he went to bed tonight and would call me as soon as he read it."

"Did you warn him that it was long?"

Ranger smiled. "I did. He said that he could sleep in tomorrow."

I smiled and took a plate, filled it with appetizers, and started to eat. Ranger and I had forgotten to eat lunch in our quest to find out as much as we could. I was surprised that Ranger hadn't stopped my investigation to make me eat, but I guess that he had been caught up in the chase as well.

Ranger looked at me. "You must be hungry", he said.

I looked down at my heaping plate. "How could you tell?"

Ranger thought about smiling. "Your stomach was rumbling so loud when you were sleeping I was surprised that it didn't wake you."

I laughed. "I guess that's why I was having dreams about eating from a never-ending buffet line."

Ranger smiled.

"So this happened to other girls as well?" said Julie.

"Yes, and you'll be the one that will stop him and make sure that he isn't able to do it to any more girls again", I said. "You have done the right thing."

"He said that he would kill Mom if I told on him."

"Your Mom will be perfectly safe", said Ranger. "He is just saying that to force you to do what he wants you to do. There has been no record of him ever hurting any adult. He only hurts girls, and he does that through sexual assault. All girls have been between the ages of twelve and fourteen." He paused. "I'm so proud of you, pipsqueak. It isn't easy to report a crime. You have to deal with all your own feelings of being violated and even, perhaps, feeling like you have done something wrong. You haven't done anything wrong though, and you are taking positive steps to ensure that Patrick doesn't do anything like this again. It would be easier to try to push this under the carpet and hope that it all went away. Not everyone is as brave as you. So I just want to say that I am so incredibly proud of you and your decision to stand up and say that what happened isn't right."

Julie looked down at the table. "I wouldn't have told you if Steph hadn't seen the emails."

"I don't know about that", I said. "I think you wanted me to see those emails, or you would have been much faster at getting out of them and hiding them from me. You had lots of time."

Julie thought about that for a moment while I ate a mushroom cap.

"That's true, isn't it?" she said. "I did want someone to see it."

"What I don't understand", said Rachel, "is why you didn't tell me?"

"Wyatt – Patrick Fernandez – said that if I told you or my father that he would kill you. I wasn't sure which father he meant, and I didn't want to take the chance. However, he didn't say anything about not telling my stepmom."

"Oh, baby", said Rachel. "I can't imagine how upset you've been. You must have been terrified."

Tears came to Julie's eyes. "Yeah, I was. I was afraid something would happen to you, and I was afraid that you would hate me for going on Tinder in the first place. I thought I was just getting what I deserved."

"No one, no matter what they have done, deserves to be treated the way that you were treated", I said. "You do deserve, however, to feel safe and know that you aren't going to be harmed, no matter what."

Ranger's phone rang, and he stepped away as he answered it. He walked into the bedroom and shut the door as I asked Julie whether she liked the waterpark. She enthusiastically told me about all the different slides that she went on and the different features of each one. She told me about her favorite, the surf simulator. And she told me about what they ate for lunch. By the time she had finished enthusing about her day, Ranger walked out of the bedroom. I looked at him anxiously. "That was the Miami Police Chief", he said to me. "He was on a conference call with Russ, and Russ patched me in. He was highly impressed by the research you did and wants to meet with us on Tuesday evening to go over the case and where they are to date with it. Russ was also impressed. He said that his department doesn't have anyone that could do the work that you did, and he would either need you to come down to train others for it or, what he would prefer, is for us to centralize the research department much like it has been a good idea to centralize the cybersecurity department."

"Are you serious?"

"He said they only have one researcher on staff, and although he used the In-Spect program he isn't proficient at it. Russ didn't even know the In-Spect program did everything that you were able to make it do."

"So my department is growing again?"

"Most likely. Russ said that he would have enough work to account for approximately a half-time person."

"What did the Police Chief say about the research itself?"

"He said that he asked the Vice Squad to see if anyone recognized Patrick, and he had two people recognize him. Both of them were introduced to him a while ago. They were on the case for what they thought was a bigger criminal, and they thought he was small potatoes and let him go. The entire Vice Squad now has their eyes and ears open to try to capture him. They will be searching the known haunts that you have identified for him over the next few days, and they are going to arrest him and try to hold him for as long as they can. The Chief is also getting a warrant to investigate Patrick and, in particular, to seize his computer. He's furious. Apparently his granddaughter is Julie's age."

"The information in my report, along with the transcript from Julie's Facebook site, should give him enough information to get the search warrant."

"He didn't think it would be a problem."

I nodded. I would have been shocked if it had. I had never done a report before where a search warrant had been denied.

"Will Patrick's computer show that he was conversing with Julie?" said Ron.

"The computer keys will be dusted for his fingerprints to see if anyone else had access to his computer. Then, the computer's hard drive will be assessed for the pictures on it, as well as to determine where he has been on the internet. His phone will also be analyzed, and the police will look to see if there are any cameras that he has been using to snap the pictures."

"I'm glad that he'll be caught", said Julie. "Will they let us know what happens?"

Ranger smiled. "They'll let us know right away, although they will text that information to us. I didn't want them calling in case it was in the middle of the ceremony on Monday."

"It will take until Monday?" said Rachel. She sounded disappointed.

"It may happen faster, or it may happen slower. I don't know how long it will take to find him, but the process is underway and he will be caught hopefully soon. We have done what we can."

"What is Russ doing?" I said.

Ranger smiled. "Russ and the ERTs are checking the known haunts as well. They are going undercover and trying to buy drugs. The Miami police are aware that they are doing this and have said they won't arrest the guys once they see the Rangeman identification. My staff is furious on our behalf." He turned to Julie and Rachel and Ron. "Don't worry. We'll catch him and make sure that he is both stopped and punished."


	19. Chapter 19

The Honduran President didn't call back until one in the morning. I rolled over and slightly woke as Ranger snapped awake and answered the call. I stayed awake long enough to hear him speak in Spanish to the person calling and to see him leave the bed and, when I decided that it was the President on the line, I promptly fell back to sleep again.

As Ranger came back to bed, I woke slightly again. "Everything okay?" I said.

"Everything is perfect", he answered. "Go back to sleep. I'll tell you in the morning."

Reassured that the wheels were staying firmly on the bus, I went back to sleep and didn't even wake up when Ranger got up for the day to go downstairs to do a workout. I did, however, wake up when he got back. He looked like he'd been working on the heavy bag again, and his shirt was soaked with sweat.

"Did you spar with Hal again?" I said.

Ranger smiled. "I worked on the heavy bag and went for a long run, and when I was tired out, Tank came in and offered to spar with me."

I smiled. "How did you do if you were tired and Tank wasn't?"

Ranger gave a half grin. "I won, but it was close."

I laughed at the pleased expression on his face, and got out of bed. Ranger gave me a few minutes to use the facilities and, when he heard me flush and wash my hands, he came into the room and stripped off his sweaty clothes.

"What did the President say last night?" I said. "I assume that it was the President that you were talking to."

He jumped in the shower and turned it on, and talked as he was washing off. "It was. He said that he had reviewed the report that you had prepared. He is planning on recalling the Fernandez family back to Honduras, but he will give it a couple of days before he does that so he doesn't spook them or alert them to the fact that an investigation is going on. He will also work with the LEOs here to ensure that the pedophile charges follow Patrick back to his country. We talked about the drug charges and after talking to me, he said that he would wait to have his Customs guys inspect all shipments from the pet food company leaving the country. He would, however, coordinate things with the DEA and, judging by what the DEA finds in the shipments here, he will charge the Fernandez family with drug trafficking. He was horrified that someone was using their diplomatic immunity to both bring in drugs to the country as well as to protect them from the ramifications associated with doing something so heinous as raping little children."

"So it was a good conversation."

"It was an excellent conversation. I told him that he no longer owes me a favor, and he told me that instead he believed he owed me two. One was for his daughter being rescued; the other was for stopping his countryman from smearing the Honduran name in an international arena. He's a good man." He shut off the shower and stepped outside. I handed him his towel, and he smiled and thanked me as he started to dry his body.

"Who else do you have to talk to?" I said.

"I've heard from the Police Chief in Miami. I've talked to the DEA. I still have yet to hear from the police in Tallahassee, Raleigh and Columbus. I don't, however, anticipate that I will hear from them until Monday morning at the earliest."

"I can see that. I hope they don't call during our ceremony."

"I'll turn off my ringer and hand the phone over to Tank when we are getting married. I also don't want the ceremony being interrupted."

"Even without the information from the other police forces, you still have a strong case against the Fernandez family."

"Yes, and even if I don't personally talk to the various other police forces, the Miami police are planning on talking to them. My input would have been more of a dating service anyway, just to make sure they talk to each other."

"Did you email them to ask for the information, or did you call them?"

"Email. Since it's the weekend, I know that most people check their email on the weekend but they don't check their voicemail until Monday morning."

"Then in that case, why don't you send them an additional email that asks them to work directly with the Miami police department? That way, something can continue to happen even if we are busy with our wedding."

"I will."

Ranger ran a sink of hot water, put some water on his brush and lathered his soap on his brush. He spread the foam on his face and scraped off his whiskers, rinsed his skin with hot water, and let the soapy water out of the sink. He dried his face and worked in some shea lotion and, when he was finished, I gave him a kiss.

"You look much more settled today than you did yesterday", I said.

"I feel more settled. I'm still angry that Julie had to go through this, but seeing her happy last night because of having a good day at the waterpark, and knowing that she's not going to be going back to Miami and having to deal with that asshole is appeasing my mood a bit. She'll be okay, I think. It was a terrible thing to happen to her, but I think she'll get through this with minimal scarring."

"It's a scary thing to happen."

"Yes, it is. It's scary for the parents just as much as it is for the child."

I followed Ranger to the dressing room and watched him get changed into a stone-washed black pair of jeans and a black t-shirt. He added a black hoody and looked at me. "I'm making breakfast soon, so if you want a shower before breakfast you might want it now."

I debated. I hadn't had my coffee yet, and Ranger knew how much I liked my coffee. "What are we having for breakfast?" I said finally.

Ranger thought about smiling. "I thought I'd make pancakes. Ella gave me a large container of coconut cream sauce."

I smiled. I'd been a fan of coconut cream sauce ever since Ella had made some for me several months ago. I had always loved pancakes, but coconut cream sauce vaulted the pancakes from something special to something amazing. "I'll be ready in ten minutes", I said.

Ranger thought about smiling. "I'll make the coffee."


	20. Chapter 20

We had a good day at the Science Center. Julie was just as fascinated with all the displays as I was, and by the time we came home again Julie said it was her favorite place that she had gone to in New Jersey. I had to agree. I had always liked going there with my class when we went on school trips. My parents had never taken me to places like that. I didn't know why. Perhaps they cost too much or they were too congested or they were too busy doing other things. I didn't know the reason, but I thought that I'd have to change that when Tia was born. I wanted to take her to all the different places to give her a wider variety of experiences. There was such an opportunity for learning that she'd miss out on otherwise.

Julie and I played Monopoly after dinner, and by the time it was Julie's bedtime I was pretty wiped out. At least, that was my excuse since Julie creamed me again at the game. As she put her pieces and cards and stack of money back in the box, she looked at me, totally seriously but with eyes twinkling, and said, "that's okay, Steph. Maybe next time." I laughed and helped her clean up the pieces.

Ranger joined me in bed shortly after I climbed in. He rolled over and pulled me into a hug, my back to his front. "This is the last night where we are single", he said. "Are you nervous?"

"A bit."

"Me, too. Why are you nervous?"

"I was married once, and I wasn't enough for Dickie. How do I know that I'll be enough for you?"

"Dickie was an idiot, and I hope that I'm not an idiot as well." He paused. "Babe, can you ever see me straying?"

"No, not as we are now. But you have only lived with me for five months, and Lula said that a good part of her business used to be men who were looking for some action because their pregnant wives weren't interested."

"Yes, we have lived together with each other for only five months consistently, but I wanted to live with you consistently for years. I hated it when you went back to your apartment after you'd stayed with me, and I prayed every night that you'd come and stay with me again. Now that you are living with me, I wonder how I was ever able to live without you here. I have been in love with you since I first met you. I saw you and bam! That was it for me. You will always be more than enough for me and I will always be grateful that you gave me a chance."

"But Lula said that men often hire hookers because they aren't attracted to their pregnant wife or because their elephant for a wife isn't interested in sex any longer."

"Okay, stop right there. Do you honestly see me straying?"

"No, but I'm sure that those wives didn't expect it either."

"Babe, you are the sexiest woman I have ever met, pregnant or not pregnant. Hands down, tongue-hanging-out-of-my-mouth sexiest. Even if I was someone who would stray, I would never stray from you because I would never find someone better than you. I know that I have it good, and I don't want to do anything to jeopardize that. But even if that wasn't true, I still wouldn't stray. I like to do what I think is right. It might not always be what society deems as right, but it makes sense to me and is what I can live with, so that's what I do. To me, straying is cheating. Full stop. It isn't something that is appropriate ever. I would never cheat on you. Above and beyond that I love you and would never be interested in someone more than you, cheating is…well…cheating, and that's just plain wrong."

I nodded, and he kissed me on the back of my head. "Babe", he said, "I love you, and nothing will ever change that."

I sniffled once and swiped the tears from my face. "What are you nervous about?" I asked.

Ranger sighed. "What happens if I'm not enough? What happens if I don't provide enough of what you need emotionally? I mean, Rachel and I were destined to part from the very beginning. But we did try to make a go of it at first. I wasn't able to provide what Rachel needed though, and we broke up."

"Your breakup didn't happen because you don't provide what Rachel needed. Your breakup happened because, although you are good friends, you just weren't the right person for each other for a romantic relationship. We are the right person for each other."

"Exactly. You will always be enough for me."

"And you'll always be enough for me."

"I worry that I'm not treating you well enough. This whole thing about our honeymoon, for example. I didn't make time for you the way that I should have."

"I don't know. We only have so much time to be able to take off. You asked me when I'd prefer that you take the time off of, and I said I'd prefer that you take the time off when the baby is born. I'll need you there when I'm panicking because the baby doesn't know how to breastfeed and I don't know how to teach her, or when her belly button stump falls off and I'm freaking out about that, or when it's the middle of the night and I have to clean up a runny diaper and am too tired to cope. Having a baby is hard and I'm terrified that I won't be a good mom, and I'll need you there to help me. Having a vacation away with you? No offense, but I don't know what I'd do with my time. After all, we wouldn't be able to spend the whole week in bed."

I could feel Ranger smile. "It would be good to try it out though, to see if it was possible."

"What? Spending the week in bed with you?"

"Yes." He kissed the back of my head again.

I laughed.

"Seriously, on our honeymoon we're going to Miami for two days so that I can work with Russ through a couple of issues that have come up, and then we are going to Atlanta for three days. We'll be signing the papers to buy Wes's company, and then I'll be holed up with his staff to discuss what is going on in the company. That isn't fair to you. And, to top it off, we haven't been able to go out on a date in forever. We tried to go one a month ago, and we were waylaid by a group of gang members. We just haven't had time since or, when we do have time, we're too tired to consider going out. I'll try to do better."

I smiled and kissed his shoulder. "I'll try to do better as well. I am committed to you. It's just that life keeps getting in the way."

"That's how I feel."

I yawned. "Just be glad that we're not going the traditional route, otherwise I'd be sleeping at my parents' tonight."

"I can't sleep without you there, babe."

"Me either, which is why I'm sleeping here rather than my parents'. I thought it'd be preferable to not show up to the wedding with huge circles under my eyes."

"Either way, you'd be beautiful."

I snorted. "Now I know that you love me. Your ability to spout bullshit and make it sound truthful is amazing."

Ranger laughed.

I yawned again.

"You need sleep, babe", said Ranger. "I hope you have a good one." He kissed me on the top of my head again.

"Don't you want to make love as single people, just one more time?"

Ranger smiled. "The next time I make love, babe, will be to consummate our relationship, and I'm very much looking forward to that. I don't want to jinx things now."

"I thought you didn't believe in jinxes or other paranormal hocus-pocus."

Ranger chuckled softly. "I don't, But it's like that old logic puzzle about God."

"What's that?"

"If you believe in God and there is a God, you'll get into Heaven. If you believe in God and there isn't a God, it won't matter. If you don't believe in God and there isn't a God, it wouldn't matter. But if you don't believe in God and there is a God, you'll be going to Hell. The smart person would be the person who believes in God just because there is a greater chance of getting into Heaven. Similarly, I don't believe in jinxes but, if I was wrong, I don't want to cause a problem unwittingly."

"I believe in jinxes."

"And that's the other reason why I don't want to make love. You believe in jinxes, and I don't want you going into the marriage thinking it's doomed."

"I don't know if I really believe in jinxes."

Ranger kissed me on the back of my head again. "But there is that little bit of a question in your mind, and that is enough of a reason not to make love. After all, we are pushing it as it is by sleeping together tonight. We don't need to add another rule-breaking to our life."

"I think the only reason that the 'no-seeing each other' rule exists is to allow a groom or bride the chance to run away without the other person knowing."

I could feel Ranger smile. "Notice that I'm not giving you that chance, babe?"

I twisted my face and kissed his shoulder. "God, I love you."

"I love you too", said Ranger. He patted my tummy and, all of a sudden, stopped moving his hand. "Was that Tia moving?" he said.

I grinned. "You could feel that?"

Ranger smiled. He patted my tummy again and Tia kicked another time. Ranger chuckled. "I definitely felt her." He rubbed my tummy again, but she didn't move another time. I yawned. "Hey, peanut", he said, "it's Daddy here. Your mommy is tired, so it's time to go to sleep, okay?" She gave one more kick and then didn't move again. I could feel Ranger smile. "She has to be the smartest child ever. She can already understand what I am saying."

I laughed. "I think it was a fluke."

Ranger chuckled. "You think what you want to think, and I'll think what I know to be true. She's a brilliant baby." He snaked his hand up to hold my breast. "Have a good sleep, babe."


	21. Chapter 21

I entered my parents' house with Julie in tow. Rachel had driven us to the beauty salon and we'd all had our hair and nails done, and Rachel had driven us to my parents' from there. My hair was arranged in an updo, and there was a large creamy-colored tea rose nestled in the knot.

My mother looked at me as I entered, and she smiled with tears in her eyes. "You look beautiful, Steph."

"I love your hair", said my grandmother as she came down the stairs. She looked at my face. "Now we just have to do something about your makeup. I could do that for you." She looked at me hopefully as I shuddered. Grandma's makeup looked like it had been applied with a trowel, and I didn't want her anywhere near my face. The last time I let her do my makeup I ended up with blue eye shadow up to my eyebrows, ruby red lips and cheeks that were so rouged it looked like I had been out in the cold – and slapped a few times.

"Thanks, Grandma", I said, "but Ranger would want me to look the same as he always has seen me, otherwise he'd wonder if he was marrying the right person."

Grandma looked disappointed, and Julie noticed. "That's okay, Great-Grandma", she said. "Steph said I can have makeup. You can do mine."

"NO!" said my mother and me at the same time. "I'll do your makeup", I said. "As your new stepmom, I'd like to."

"Are you hungry?" said my mother as she changed the conversation. Apparently she had noticed my grandmother pouting just as much as I had. "I made snacks in case you felt like something to eat."

"Thanks", I said. "I'm too nervous to want to eat anything." My stomach was churning, and I thought that I was about to throw up.

"I'll get a plate of food to take up to your room in case you change your mind", said my mother. My grandmother followed behind as Julie turned to me.

"Why are you nervous, Steph?" said Julie.

I looked at her. "Your dad is the best person I know. I don't know why he is with me when he could have anyone. I mean, he's beautiful as a person, both inside and out. He deserves the best, and I don't think I'm it." Tears came to my eyes and I sniffled.

Julie smiled and gave me a hug. "He loves you so much, and he is happier than I have ever seen him. Bone deep happy, you know? My mom and I have both noticed it. He smiles more, laughs more and, as my mom said, he seems settled. He relaxes now. He has always been calm and peaceful, but there is a coil inside him that is wound too tight. It's always ready to spring open. But when he's around you, it's like that coil has sprung open. I have never seen him relaxed before, not like the way he is now. It's like…I don't know how to describe it…he just takes time to enjoy life now. My mom and I are so happy that you have agreed to marry him. You mean everything to him."

"Do you really think I make him happy?"

"Absolutely. Dad is a good person, and he deserves the best. You're it."

"You don't mind me marrying him?"

Julie smiled. "It's like I told you at Thanksgiving. I live in Florida and can't be here to look after him and protect him. Dad always looks after everyone else but he needs someone to look after him. I know you'll look after him. I don't mean like Ella looks after him. She looks after him like a mother. You look after him like my mom looks after Ron. And Dad looks after you like Ron looks after my mother. My mom and Ron have the best relationship out of everyone I know, but I think that the relationship between you and Dad is as good."

I gave Julie another hug. "Thanks, Jules. I needed that."

She gave me a kiss on the cheek. "Let's go get ready to knock his socks off."

I smiled as my mother came through with a tray of cheese and crackers, and another of cut fruit. "I purposely didn't bring anything with garlic in it", said my mother. "I didn't want to take the chance that Ranger wouldn't want to kiss you."

"Good point", I said. "Can I get some mouthwash?"

An hour later, I'd been able to calm my stomach with a handful of crackers and a few slices of banana – and a few trips to the bathroom. I had done my makeup. Instead of Grandma's preferred blue shadow, I had done my eyes with taupes. I added four coats of mascara. I had found in the past that the quality of my day improved with the number of coats of mascara that I put on. One, and the day would go down the toilet. Three and the day would be a good one. I thought four should be a good luck charm.

Knowing that Julie would want to wear makeup as well – I had asked Rachel and she had approved it – I had bought Julie a new tube of mascara and a tinted lip balm in a natural shade. I didn't let her wear the full BB cream/bronzer etcetera amount of makeup, but I did let her apply one coat of mascara and some tinted lip balm. Julie was thrilled with the amount of makeup she was allowed to wear, and I was pleased that she didn't look like a tramp. She would have if my grandmother had done her makeup.

About fifteen minutes before we were ready to go, I was ready to put my dress on. Julie had changed into her dress, a skater dress in a dark red with crystal detailing spread over the bodice. It looked fabulous with her dark hair and eyes. She was wearing black flats with the outfit, and I was glad to see her not in heels. I hated it when young girls wore heels. There was lots of time for them to grow up, and I didn't think they needed to grow up too fast.

Julie helped me put my dress on, and she did up the back for me. She twitched in into place and stood back and grinned. "You look beautiful. Dad is going to cry when he sees you."

My mother and grandmother looked at me with tears in their eyes. "You do look beautiful", they said as I looked at myself in the full-length mirror. I was pleased that the dress showed off my new diamond necklace that Ranger had given me. I loved it, and I wanted to show it off.

My father came to the door of the bedroom and knocked, and my mother opened it. He looked uncomfortable in his suit, and he pulled on the neckline to loosen off his tie. "Leave it", my mother said. "You look handsome, and if you pull on your tie you'll mess it up."

My father looked abashed at my mother, then glanced over at me. Tears came to his eyes. "You look beautiful, Steph."

I looked at him. "I look okay? Ranger won't run away?"

"I always took him for a smart man", said my dad. "If he runs away, I would have to sincerely question his judgment."

I smiled.

"Are your flowers at the restaurant?" said my grandmother.

"They are", I said. We turned around and left the bedroom and trooped down the stairs.

"I want to get some pictures", said my mom as she picked up her purse and removed her phone.

I groaned. My mother always wanted to take pictures, and I always hated being in them. "I should have eloped", I said under my breath.

"Steph, don't be like that", said my mother with a frown. "Stand with Julie and I'll take a picture. I'd like to give Ranger one that is extra special, his two girls together."

"Three girls", said Julie with a laugh. My mother smiled as Julie stood beside me and snapped a few pictures of the two of us together.

After she had a few that she especially liked, she asked my father to stand beside us. She snapped a few of those as well. After pictures were taken of the three of us, my grandmother took pictures of my parents and Julie and me and, by the time we had finished taking some pictures of Julie and me with my grandmother, and then Julie and my mom and me with my grandmother, we were running late. "Drive fast", I said to my father as we left the house.

My father had backed Big Blue out of the garage to drive us to the ceremony in. Big Blue was a 1953 Buick that Uncle Sandor had willed to my grandmother when he passed on to the big buffet in the sky. Of course, he had passed on to the big buffet in the sky because he had partaken of the big buffet on earth too many times, and he had died of the resulting heart disease.

My grandmother, however, didn't have a driver's license. While that didn't stop her from driving, my mother's upset associated with her driving did. She said my mother was being unreasonable. I said my mother was making a lot of sense. After all, our garbage pails were flattened seven times when my grandmother was driving. She said that it was because someone had put them in her blind spot. My mother said it was because she was just blind. Either way, when my grandmother told the police officer that she was speeding because she couldn't read the speed signs, the police pulled her license. She said she only said that because she didn't think they would accept the reason that she was being chased by aliens. I asked her if that meant that aliens had actually been chasing her, and she nodded. However, she looked hopeful as she did it, so I knew that she knew that I didn't believe in aliens any more than the police did.

I climbed into the back seat of Big Blue after Julie. She was sitting in the middle, and she looked around her quite interestedly. "I've never been in a car like this before", she said.

"They don't make them like this anymore", said my grandmother. "I should start driving again. I'd like to drive this car. It would remind me of old times."

"NO!" said my mother. "You are NOT getting your driver's license again."

"Who said anything about getting my license?" said Grandma.

I groaned.


	22. Chapter 22

I looked at Ranger as I entered the restaurant on my father's arm. His gaze was soft and full of love – and relieved. Apparently he had been worried about me showing up for the ceremony, and the fact that I was on time and not ten minutes early had made him concerned. He took in my simple bouquet of eucalyptus and a tea rose, my dress and my makeup, and I could see him blink back tears from his eyes. Julie noticed as well, and she pulled me down to her level. "Told you", she said. I smiled.

Julie walked to the front of the restaurant and stood beside the fireplace. She slipped her hand into Ranger's and tugged him to her level. She whispered something in his ear and he nodded, then whispered something else in his ear and he smiled. But the whole time he was talking to his daughter, his eyes were glued on me.

I looked at the restaurant. The lights were dim and Ranger's parents had wrapped tiny string lights around the wooden beams traversing the restaurant. In the center of each table were five pillar candles in hand-blown glass cylinders of various sizes. Sprigs of eucalyptus and tea roses wound around the candles. Each place setting had a silver charger with white china on top. Glasses were hand-blown by the same people we bought our candle holders from, and were, in fact, our thank-you present for attending our wedding. Table linens were a snowy white.

Ranger was wearing his tux, but instead of his traditional black shirt he was wearing a crisp white one. His cummerbund and bowtie were black, and I thought my heart would stop with how beautiful he was. I once again wondered what he saw in me. I wasn't anything special.

The pianist changed from playing soft classical music to playing the wedding march, and my father and I walked to Ranger. My father had tears in his eyes. As we got up to Ranger, he turned to me and kissed me on my cheek. "I like this one", he said softly in my ear. "I know that you are going to be happy."

I looked at my father and smiled. "Thanks, Dad", I said. I thought that was a change from what my father had said when I married Dickie. Then, he had asked me whether I knew what I was doing, and he had told me that I could always come home again.

I turned to Ranger. "You look amazing", I whispered.

Ranger thought about smiling. "You're so damn beautiful." He paused to take me in. "I was worried that you weren't going to show."

"I've been nervous myself. I don't know why you're marrying me."

Ranger smiled a half-smile. "Because you're my life."

The pianist stopped playing, and we turned to the officiant as he started the service.

I have to admit that I zoned out through most of the service. I was crying from the beauty of it all, and from the love that was spilling over in my heart. My nose was running and I was hoping that the snot wasn't shiny in all the pictures that everyone was taking. Julie looked at me and left the space in front of the fireplace for a moment, and she came back a minute later with a box of tissues. I laughed and thanked her as I gratefully took one.

But I snapped back into the present moment as the officiant said, "will you, Ricardo, take Stephanie to be your wife, to be her constant friend, her partner in life, and her true love? To love her without reservation, honor and respect her, protect her from harm, comfort her in times of distress, and to grow with her in mind and spirit?"

"I will", said Ranger.

I agreed to the same thing, and then the officiant led us through our vows. "I, Ricardo Carlos Manoso, take you, Stephanie Plum, to be my friend, my lover, the mother of my children and my wife. I will be yours in times of plenty and in times of want, in times of sickness and in times of health, in times of joy and in times of sorrow, in times of failure and in times of triumph. I promise to cherish and respect you, to care and protect you, to comfort and encourage you, and to stay with you for all eternity." Ranger slipped the ring onto my finger.

I repeated the vow to Ranger and slipped the ring on his finger. I smiled at him. It was done. He was stuck with me, whether he liked it or not.

Ranger gathered me into his arms and kissed me and, after a moment, I stepped back and pulled Julie into a hug. "Thank you for encouraging me", I said. I sniffled. "This is the happiest moment of my life."

Julie smiled with tears in her eyes. "I'm happy too", she said. She pulled another tissue from the box and handed it to me, then looked at Ranger and pulled another tissue for him before taking one for herself.

Ranger gathered me into another hug and gave me another kiss. "I'm just so happy", I said to him.

Ranger smiled. "Me too. I feel like my heart is spilling over. I'm so proud that you are my wife." He kissed me again.

The pianist started to play again, and everyone clapped as Ranger escorted me to the table and pulled out my chair for me. "Let's eat", he said. "I haven't been able to eat all day."

Everyone laughed. "You think he's kidding", said Rachel. "It was all I could do to keep him calm."

"Now can I call you Auntie Stephanie?" said Cecelia, Ranger's young niece.

"NO!" said Lisa, my three-year old niece. "Mine!" She wiggled off her chair and ran up to me to climb on my lap.

I laughed. "Lisa, I can be an aunt to many people. You will always be my favorite Lisa though, just like Cecelia is my favorite Cecelia. I'm an aunt to Victoria and Edmund and Mary Alice and Angie, just like I'm an aunt to you, aren't I? Just because I am an aunt to them doesn't make me any less of an aunt to you. Do you understand?"

She nodded her head, but I'm not sure she did.

"Think of it this way, you still have me as an aunt, but you are gaining an uncle. You now have an Uncle Ranger."

"Uncle Ranger?"

"Yes. Ranger is your uncle now."

Edmund started to cry, and Valerie stood and tried to soothe him. She rocked him back and forth, and she jiggled him up and down. Nothing she did calmed him, however. I looked at Ranger, and he looked at me and smiled. He kissed me on the cheek and got up, walked over to Valerie, and took Edmund from her arms. Edmund immediately quieted. "Ranger always did have a way with babies", said his mother to mine.

"It's the most amazing thing", said my mother. "Edmund is often fussy and sometimes we can soothe him, but Ranger can always soothe him, no matter what."

Ranger walked over to the head table and sat down at his seat. I looked at the other people at the head table – Ranger's parents, my parents and Julie, and said, "I just hope he is as successful at soothing our baby as he is at soothing Edmund."

"It's because Dad is so calm", said Julie. "When you're with him, it infects you and you feel calm as well."

I smiled. "You too, hunh?" I said to Julie. "When I give your dad a hug, I can feel all the anxiety float away and I know, as much as possible, that you dad would never let anything bad happen to me. I feel safe with him."

Julie nodded. "So do I."

I looked at Ranger, and his face was flushed in embarrassment. I smiled and leaned over to kiss him on his cheek. "Love you", I said.

Ranger's face turned soft as he looked at me. "Love you too, babe." He moved Edmund from his shoulder down to his lap and cradled him in his arms as the first course was served, and Lisa ran back to the table to eat her own dinner. By the time the third course was served, Edmund was getting hungry himself, and Ranger took him back to Val. Valerie was wearing a nursing dress, and she was able to feed Edmund at the table without exposing herself. I personally wouldn't have cared, and knowing Ranger's family they wouldn't have cared either. However, my father would have been embarrassed. He was old-fashioned Italian, and he thought that sort of thing should be done in private.

By the end of the fifth and final course, even I was full. I turned to Ranger's mother. "Thank you for arranging such a wonderful meal", I said. Ranger's mother and father had arranged for the caterer, and they had helped select the different foods for the different courses. They had done a good job. The food was the best food that I had ever tasted, and that was saying something. I had tasted my mom's food, Ella's food, Ranger's food and Ranger's family's food. Any of those people were excellent chefs.

"It turned out well, didn't it?" said Ranger's mother. She smiled with happiness. "Is this wedding happening according to your dream?" A couple of months ago, I'd had a dream about our wedding, and after I had told Ranger about it he had quietly put the steps in place to make my dream come true.

"It is better than my dream", I said. "The table decorations are more beautiful, the pianist wasn't in my dream but it is a lovely touch, and the people are actually live people. No offense, but only Julie and Ranger and me were in my dream."

Ranger's mother smiled. "That's the way it's supposed to be."

Ranger turned to me. "I notice that Mama and Papa cleared a spot for dancing when they arranged the tables."

"Oh, no", I said. "I'm about the least graceful person around. I don't dance without a lot of alcohol."

"Come on, babe. You can't be that bad."

"I took ballet when I was four. I thought that I would be a ballerina when I grew up."

"I could see you as a ballerina."

"Hunh. Apparently the teacher couldn't. She called my mother up and suggested that I take up karate."

"Why's that?"

"Because I liked to jump in the air like they did on the television shows. Only I didn't land well and took out three other ballerinas who were just trying to do pliés, and I did this not once but five times. Each time they went down like dominoes, and the other parents finally said that they would boycott the dance studio until I was banned from classes."

"That must have been hard for the dance teachers to turn you away."

"Actually, I think they were a bit relieved. They had, by then, realized that I would never become a dancer and they didn't want it known that they had failed to teach me."

Ranger smiled. "To tell you the truth, I'm not much of a dancer either. But I would like one dance at least with my bride. I want to remember this wedding and everything we did as we started out our lives together. You don't have to dance more than once with me, but I would like one dance. Besides, I've noticed other couples looking at the dance floor like they want to dance, and are hoping we'll break the ice so that they can go up themselves."

"You won't let me fall?"

Ranger smiled. "Never."


	23. Chapter 23

The children were getting tired, and so was I. Besides, I had remembered that Ranger had wanted to consummate our marriage, and ever since I had seen him in his tux, I was more than ready.

I had danced with every man in the room. Morelli, my ex-boyfriend but now good friend, was surprisingly awkward and had told me how beautiful I was and that he was really happy for us, and I could tell that he had meant it. Tank was surprisingly light on his feet, and he told me how beautiful I was and how happy I made Ranger. In fact, telling me how beautiful I looked was the standard line that everyone said to me. I guess that old saying 'as beautiful as a bride' was accurate.

In preparation for our trip back to Trenton, I stopped off at the washroom. Valerie was there changing Edmund. After I used the facilities and stopped to wash my hands, I said, "your dress looks fabulous on you. I love that color of blue. It really brings out the blue in your eyes."

"I could have looked nicer if I had your money", said Val. She was slurring her words and was obviously drunk. "You have my life. I was supposed to be the one that married someone wealthy. I was supposed to be the one with the large house and a husband that adored me and money in the bank. Instead, you're living my life."

"Pardon me?" I saw red. How dare she say something like that to me, let alone on my wedding day?

"Mom and Dad and Grandma have been talking about the fantastic apartment you live in, and they have described to me the apartment that you are building. You don't deserve that life."

"Why not?"

"You were always the screw-up, always the person who fell in the doggie doo-doo, and I did everything right. So how come you were rewarded with the good life and I'm stuck with Albert?"

"He adores you."

"He's an imbecile."

"You married him. It was your choice."

"You tricked me into the wedding."

"You were pregnant with his kids."

"Can't I be a single mother?"

"You could, but would you really want to be a single mother? To have everyone in the neighborhood talking about you? To have mom trying to find dates for you?"

"No, but you'll find out what that is like. Ranger won't stick around for someone like you. He is only marrying you because of the baby, just like he married Julie's mom because of Julie." She looked at me. "That's why my first husband married me. We thought I was pregnant. I wasn't, but by the time we figured that out it was too late. We were already married."

"You got a couple of wonderful daughters out of that marriage."

"True, and that's all you'll get from your marriage to Ranger. Pretty soon, he'll leave you at home and forget about you and fuck the babysitter. I mean, look at you! You're a reject and, if my ex can leave me after I did everything right, how can you honestly think that Ranger will stick around for you? You don't do anything right!"

My eyes filled with tears.

"All Mom and Dad and Grandma talk about is how you have landed on your feet and how you have earned everything you have been given. They are so proud of you with your hotshot job and your big house and your nice car and your perfect pregnancy."

"Perfect pregnancy! I threw up for three months solid."

"Yes, but you've been able to keep the weight off. By twenty weeks in any of my pregnancies I looked like I had swallowed a beach ball."

"I'm sure I'll gain weight now that I'm able to keep food down."

"It doesn't matter. You have hijacked my life, the life I was supposed to lead. You've always been the reject. I've always been the accomplished one."

"Val, where is this coming from? You have a husband who kisses the ground you walk on, five kids who mean the world to you, and a job that you seem to be enjoying."

"I'm an office manager. I'm not the Director of Research for a large, successful company, a company that is growing fast. I don't have staff that work for me. I don't earn a huge salary. My husband is a struggling lawyer. I mean, what kind of lawyer is struggling? It's one of those professions that always have work. Yes, he adores me but I don't adore him."

"I'm sorry."

"It just goes to prove that love doesn't last. You think Ranger will stick by you through the midnight feedings and spit-up and messy diapers? You think someone who looks like Ranger will honestly stick around when you look haggard and are dealing with sleep deprivation? At least with Albert, I know that he won't stray. After all, how could he possibly do better than me? But Ranger? Anyone would be better than you." I was stunned by the vitriol that was coming from Val's mouth. "I mean, I've loved Ranger longer than you. Why did you get to marry him and I had to end up with Albert?"

Christmas was the first time I had suspected that she was jealous of me, but I had never suspected that she was jealous of me settling down with Ranger specifically. Before she settled down with Albert, she had wanted me to set Ranger up with her. I had thought it was a passing infatuation. Apparently it wasn't as passing as I had thought.

The jealousy between Val and I was high. I had always been jealous of her perfect life. She was right. I was a screw-up and she always was the perfect person. She deserved my life.

Julie walked out of a stall and washed her hands as I started to cry. She gave me a hug as Val picked up Edmund and weaved her way out of the bathroom. "Think about it, little sis. Men like Ranger don't stick around for rejects like you", she said as she left. She hadn't even been embarrassed that Julie had heard her.

"Bitch", said Julie quietly.

I shuddered in a breath. "I can't cry. My makeup will run and your dad will wonder what is wrong."

"Are you going to tell him?"

"He'll just get mad. I don't want him to get mad."

"Doesn't he have that right?" said Julie.

I shuddered in another breath. "Thanks for being there for me."

"You okay?"

"I just need a few minutes to myself. Can you tell your Dad that I'm okay but that I'll be a few minutes? I don't want him to worry."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, thanks."

She gave me another hug and walked out of the bathroom.

I dampened some paper towels with cold water and dabbed my face. Minutes later, there was a knock on the bathroom door and Ranger walked in. He gathered me into his arms and rubbed my back. "Julie told me what Val said", he said quietly.

"She's just drunk. She always says stuff like that when she's drunk."

"That's no excuse. Did she say things like that at Christmas?"

I nodded.

"Babe, she's jealous."

"I know. But she's right. She has done everything right and I have done everything wrong. I don't deserve you. She does."

"First of all, this isn't a contest between you and Val. If it was, I would never choose Val and I would always choose you. If it were a contest between you and anyone else, I would always choose you. You're my life. Secondly, you do everything right. You work hard and are rewarded because you are highly talented and are one of the hardest workers I have ever met. You have staff because you have developed your department with your talent. You have impressed so many people by what you can do that your department is growing by leaps and bounds. You have earned everything you have by doing things right."

My mother walked into the washroom, and I hid my wet face in Ranger's jacket. Ranger turned to her. "Can we have a moment?"

My mother looked surprised. "I'm sorry. I didn't know you were there. Steph, Val and Albert and the kids are leaving. You should come out and say goodbye to them."

"I already did, thanks, Mom."

She didn't look happy, but Ranger glared at her and she turned and left the room.

I started to cry again. "Now my mother thinks that I'm a bad person because I didn't say goodbye to Val, but I really don't want to see her."

"I don't want to see her either", said Ranger.

"I'm sorry", I said as I took shuddering gulps of air. "Val is right. I'm a reject and I don't deserve you. You deserve so much more."

Ranger rubbed my back slowly and firmly and turned slightly so that he was still holding me but could reach my left hand. He pulled my hand up to his mouth and kissed my ring finger. "Babe, this ring means that, no matter what anyone, Val or even you, thinks, I have chosen _you_ to marry. I have chosen you to be by my side. I have chosen you to live my life with. You are not a reject. You are everything to me, and I never want to hear you talk about yourself like that again."

"But…"

"Babe, I won't allow anyone to talk about you that way. Not even when you talk about yourself. You are not a reject. You have so much going for you. There is a whole roomful of people out there who believe it. So Val doesn't. She's just one person."

I shuddered in another breath. "Crap", I said. "I forgot that we had all our guests out there still."

Ranger smiled and pulled me into a kiss. And like other times when he kissed me, the world ceased to exist and my problems shrunk and fluttered away.

I stepped back as my grandmother knocked on the door. "Ranger, I really have to use the toilet. I'm an old lady, you know."

"Use the men's room", said Ranger.

"Oh, my", said my grandmother. "I've never used the men's room before. Do they have toilets in there? I don't think I could use a urinal."

I snorted out a laugh as Ranger looked at me, a soft expression in his eyes and a half-smile on his face. "I love you, babe."

"I love you too", I said. I buried my face in his shoulder and just sniffed. I could smell the Bulgari Green on his skin and I let the scent calm me. I could hear his heart beat slow and regular, and I let the sound ground me. I could feel his arms, strong and stable around me, and I let the weight reassure me.

Ranger let me hang onto him as I gathered my self-confidence and self-respect up, and when I had absorbed enough of his peace to face the guests again, I stepped back and gave him another kiss. "Thank you", I said.

Ranger thought about smiling. He kissed my ring finger again. "You are stuck with me now", he said. "You promised in front of God that you would stay with me from now until eternity, and I know that you'd never want to break a promise to God. You didn't even cross your fingers behind your back. I was looking."

I snorted out a laugh.

He kissed me again, and I stepped back to look at myself in the mirror. My eyes were bloodshot and puffy, and my nose was red and blocked. I had never been a delicate crier. Val could cry for hours and, when she was finished, she would just have a bit of watery eyes. I was the opposite. I was an ugly crier and when I had finished crying everybody knew that I had just spent the last few minutes in tears.

I repaired my makeup the best that I could as Ranger watched me with a soft expression on his face. "What?" I said as I decided that I had done the best that I could with my face.

"It just hit me again that you married me. I never thought I would ever be lucky enough." He pulled me into a hug. "When you were with Morelli, I despaired that this day would ever come."

"When I was with Morelli, I never thought that I'd ever be as happy as I am now."


	24. Chapter 24

Ranger drove me back to Rangeman. I fell asleep. As we pulled into the parking garage, I woke up and looked around. "Where are Ron and Rachel and Julie?" I said. "I hope they haven't gotten lost."

"I was planning on taking you to a hotel tonight", he said. "I was going to surprise you with it. But then Rachel pointed out to me that we wouldn't have time to come back, have you pack, and make it back to the airport in time for our flight tomorrow. So Rachel and Ron are taking Julie to the hotel and we have the apartment to ourselves."

"That was nice of them."

"They understood. They were always appreciative of the fact that I took Julie for the first week after they got married. They said that was a bigger gift than the thousand dollars I gave them for a wedding present."

I smiled. Ranger had always been a generous person. Nine years ago, when Rachel and Ron got married, Ranger had still been in the army and hadn't earned much money.

Ranger parked the car and hurried around it to open my door for me. He helped me out of the car and walked with me to the elevators. He held my hand as we waited, and periodically he would lift my hand to kiss my fingers.

"What do you want to do when we get in?" I said.

Ranger smiled one of those half-smiles that I loved. "I think I made some promises to cherish you."

"Oh, yeah? How are you going to do that, buddy?"

"I don't know, but I think I promised that I'd love you as well." He smiled and kissed my nose. "And I'd like to love you very much", he said softly.

We got on the elevator. Luckily no one joined us on the elevator on our way up. Ranger and I used the time to make out. As we got to the seventh floor, Ranger picked me up and carried me to the door, juggled his keys and unlocked the door, and carried me through to the bedroom. He dropped me on the bed and I laughed as I bounced a few times. I took off my coat, and Ranger left to put them in the closet. He came back and took off my shoes and put them away in the dressing room before turning to me. "That dress has been driving me nuts all night."

"This dress?" I said in surprise. I thought it was a pretty dress, but I didn't think it was especially sexy.

"That dress has that sexy skirt that shows your legs to perfection. The bodice shows just enough cleavage to hint at what is underneath, and it is perfectly suited to your slender body. The color is perfect for your hair and eye combination. You are the sexiest person I have ever met." He helped me out of the dress and looked at me. "The packaging didn't falsely advertise."

"Oh, yeah?" I said with a smile. "That tux has been driving me wild all day as well. You look like a tanned James Bond. The Sean Connery one, since he was the only one worth watching."

Ranger thought about smiling. "I don't know if I can stay married to you", he said as he took off his clothes.

"Why is that?"

"Daniel Craig was the best Bond."

"Hunh."

"What's that's supposed to mean?" said Ranger. He came over me as I lay on the bed, and he kissed the corners of my mouth.

"It's just that Lula and I have agreed that you resemble James Bond, and that you are most like Sean. After all, like you, he's sex on a stick. But if Daniel Craig is the better Bond, perhaps I should go out and look for someone who reminds me of Daniel Craig."

He softly scattered butterfly kisses over my nose, my cheeks and my neck. "I could be your Daniel Craig", he said as he worked his way down.

As he reached my most sensitive spot and bit down gently, I just about came off the bed. "Oh yeah, baby. Craig me."

Ranger 'craiged' me three times before sleep, twice in the middle of the night, and once instead of working out in the gym in the morning. When it was time to get up, I wasn't sure if I would be able to stay awake – or whether I'd be able to walk. Ranger had loved me so thoroughly and so often that I felt like a lazy cat who had lapped up a dish of cream and was now sitting in the sun. I had fallen back to sleep again after our last time, and Ranger woke me half an hour later with a coffee in hand. "I'm sorry, babe", he said. "We have to get going if we are going to make our flight time."

"What time is it?" I rolled over to see the time and sat up straight in a panic. "I'm sorry. It's going to take us an hour to get to Newark, and our flight leaves in two hours. Don't we have to check in two hours ahead of time? We'll never make it."

Ranger smiled. "I arranged a surprise for you. Instead of taking a regular flight, I booked a private plane. It's a much nicer way to travel, it gave us better flight times, and I thought it would be a treat for Julie and Ron and Rachel and you. Our flight isn't booked to go out until eleven, and Tank is driving us to the airport. We are meeting Ron and Rachel and Julie there."

"It's eight."

"And we don't need to leave until ten."

I scrambled to my feet. "I need to pack!"

"You have two hours. I'm sure you can shower and pack and eat in two hours."

"That's all well and good for you to say, but you've already packed and showered, haven't you?"

Ranger smiled.

I growled at him, then smiled and kissed him. "Thank you for booking the private plane", I said. "It will be a fun experience for Julie." Ranger smiled again. "I liked having Julie here. I wish she lived closer."

"Rachel asked me, when you were with Julie at your parents, whether it would be alright for us to take Julie for a few weeks this summer. She said that it is Ron's and her tenth anniversary, and they were hoping to take the honeymoon they never had the money to take the first time around. They'd like to go to Europe and see Paris and Venice and Rome. They were thinking of taking a month."

I grinned. "So we'd get Julie for a month?" I got up to go take a shower, and Ranger followed me to the door of the bathroom. He waited outside while I used the facilities, and a few minutes later entered when I called out the 'all-clear'.

"Is that okay with you? I told Rachel that I wanted to talk to you about it first."

"That would be awesome!" I said. I turned on the shower, waited a second as it warmed up, and then stepped inside. "If Rachel and Ron planned it for a little before the baby is born, we'd get some time with Julie ourselves and then have time as the four of us together before she had to go back to Miami."

"That's kind of what I was thinking, but I was leaving it up to you. I will be at work part of the time, so I wouldn't be able to help you much with her."

"That's okay. I'd like some time with Julie anyway." I quickly shampooed and conditioned, washed and shaved. A few short minutes later, I stepped out of the shower. Ranger quickly toweled me off and wrapped me in his housecoat as I pulled out the hair dryer. Ranger left the bathroom while I blasted my hair. My patience only lasted a few minutes – long enough to half-dry my hair – before I turned the dryer off and put it away. I put on my makeup, pulled my hair back into a ponytail and packed my toiletries, and fifteen minutes after I had got out of the bed I was walking back into the bedroom to pack my clothes.

"What will the weather be like in Atlanta?" I said. "What kind of clothes should I take?"

"The weather will be cool", said Ranger. "In Miami, it will be hot and you'll probably want to wear skirts, since you don't have any shorts. We are only staying until Thursday anyway. I just have some things that I have to do with Russ that made more sense for us to do in person rather than over the phone. On Thursday we'll be going to Atlanta, and on Friday we'll be signing the deal. We're going out Friday night with Wes, so you'll want to wear dressier clothes for that. I'll work with Wes all weekend and we are scheduled to return to Trenton on Sunday. In Atlanta, to answer your question, the temperatures will be between fifty-five and sixty Fahrenheit. You'll have much more ability to wear pants and sweaters."

"Okay", I said. I pulled out a variety of shirts and blouses and sweaters, dresses and skirts and pants, underwear and socks. I decided to wear an oversized cotton chambray shirt, rolled up at the sleeves, a pair of tights and a pair of Converse on the plane. It was my experience that you could never be too comfortable on a plane. The last thing you needed, as you were sitting in your plane seat during takeoff, was to be thinking about how your waistband was binding your tummy, and how you didn't think there was enough room between your waistband and your tummy to both breathe and eat. Because, when it came down to it, if it came to a choice between breathing and eating, I'm not sure breathing would win.

I packed my clothes into my suitcase, added a pair of heels and an evening purse, and closed up my bag. I looked at my bag forlornly. "I'm sorry", I said.

"What for?"

"I didn't get any sexy lingerie. I didn't think any would fit."

Ranger thought about smiling. "Babe, haven't you figured it out by now? I like you best in nothing at all."


	25. Chapter 25

The plane touched down at three in the afternoon. The weather, as Ranger had predicted, was hot. I had made arrangements with Rachel and Julie that they were picking me up at nine the next morning so that they could take me around and show me the sights. They promised Ranger that they'd have me back to the Rangeman facility by six in the evening.

Rachel and Ron offered to drive us to Rangeman, and Julie scrambled into the middle of the back seat as Ranger and Ron got the suitcases stored in the back. I sat beside her, and Rachel sat at the other side. Julie clasped both of our hands and smiled. "This is nice", she said. "My best friend, Brittney, has a stepmom and a real mom as well, and the two moms don't get along. They always say nasty things about the other person, and Brittney is always caught in the middle. It makes her cry."

"I can imagine that it would", I said. "It must be hard for her to be stuck in the middle like that."

"It is", said Julie. "She lives with her mother, and she hates seeing her father because she knows, leading up to it, that she'd hear complaints about her stepmom from her mother, and then complaints about her mother from her stepmom when she was just trying to have a nice time with her dad. It's sad. She says sometimes that being a foster kid sounds nice."

"I hope you never feel that way about us", I said.

Julie smiled. "My friend's mom and stepmom would never have gone to have their hair and nails done together. Her stepmom would never have invited Brittney's mom to her wedding. I can't see that you'll ever fight like that. You're both too nice, and you care too much about people to feel comfortable with fighting someone over petty little things."

"Speaking about fighting, Steph, I have to say this and get it off my chest", said Rachel. "This has been eating me up since Julie told me." I looked at her in concern. "Julie told me what your sister said. She wasn't gossiping. She was just upset last night."

"We both were. I wish Julie hadn't had to hear that."

"I just want to tell you that your sister is wrong. Dead wrong. You are a wonderful person that I am proud to call my friend. You will be a great stepmom, and Julie already loves you. You are the best person that I have ever met for Ranger, and he adores you. He will honor his vows to you not because you made a promise in front of God, but because he wants to honor those vows with you. If you were five hundred pounds, he'd still love you. If you were in an accident and your face was marred so that you lost your physical beauty, he'd still love you. His love for you is true and deep, and your sister was wrong when she said that he'd leave you for the babysitter. He's like glue. He won't leave you for anything. Julie said that your sister called you a reject. That was also totally wrong. You have so much going for you. You are a good person, and your sister is the one that is the reject."

"She just jealous, and because she drank too much last night she wasn't able to close the gates and that jealousy all came flooding out. I had known a few years ago she had a crush on Ranger, but I didn't realize she was still carrying a torch for him."

"Being drunk is no excuse. And what was she doing drinking too much? She has kids. Her kids shouldn't have to see her drinking. That's just wrong. You would never drink too much."

"I haven't been drunk since the night I left my ex-husband."

"That's what I'm saying. When was that?"

"Over ten years ago."

"That's what I mean, and when you have kids you'll drink even less. It's hard to justify getting drunk when you know that you have to get up in the morning and be functional. Even more, it is hard to justify getting drunk when there is always the possibility that you have to take your little one to the hospital in the middle of the night. It's important to always be able to think clearly when you have kids." Ranger and Ron got in the car. "Anyway, I'm sorry if I spoke out of turn, but I needed to get that off my chest."

"What's that?" said Ranger.

"That Stephanie's sister is a bitch and she doesn't know what she is talking about."

"Mom!" said Julie. She sounded scandalized. "You never use words like that."

Rachel smiled. "Sometimes a strong word is what is needed", she said.

"I agree with you", said Ranger. "I knew that she had said something to Steph at Christmas that upset her, but Steph wouldn't tell me what it was. Apparently it was more of what she said to Steph yesterday."

"She really is a good person", I said. "She's just unhappy with the way her life is going right now, and she feels that I'm a safe person to take it out on. I guess that's what sisters are like."

"I have a sister", said Rachel. "She's nothing like that. If you are family, you are supposed to build people up rather than tear them down. You should always be able to rely on your family. If your sister said those kinds of things to you one other time, it is more than a passing thought. Christmas was almost two months ago."

"She was drunk that time as well", I said.

"All I'm saying is that she was neither justified nor accurate in her criticisms. Even if she was, which she wasn't, your wedding was the wrong venue."

"She really is a nice person", I said.

"She made you cry on our wedding day", said Ranger. "Now, when you think of our wedding, you'll think of the argument you had with your sister rather than fond memories of the guests or the decorations or the music or the food or the ceremony. For that, I may never forgive her."

Julie leaned into me. "We love you, Steph", she said.

Tears came to my eyes as I looked at the anger in Rachel's face, the worry in Julie's, and the tightness around Ranger's eyes that showed how irritated he really was.

Ranger looked at me and sighed. "Time for a new subject. Russ and Steph and I are meeting with the Police Chief tonight to hear what has been happening on Julie's stalking case. The police will probably have to talk to you, Jules. However, we will be able to meet with them and go over the case and the information that we have been able to bring up."

"Okay", said Rachel. "Whatever you need us to do, we'll do it. We want to see this guy go down."

"He will", said Ranger. "I received word from the DEA that a shipment of dog food has come into the country. They are currently testing it for drugs. I hope to have some answers to pass on to the Police Chief by this evening."

"How were you able to get everyone working together so fast on this?" said Ron.

"I have a few friends in the different agencies", said Ranger.

I tried not to smile. Ranger had many friends in the DEA, but the friend he had called on was the Chief. He had explained the problem, and his friend had run with it.

"And you think he'll be deported?" said Rachel.

"I have a friend's word that he'll be taken back to Honduras and punished both for his pedophile tendencies as well as for the drug smuggling."

"Can you trust this friend? Does he have enough power to promise that?"

"Absolutely."

"What does your friend do?"

Ranger paused. Rachel looked at him and waited. "He's the President", he said finally.

"Of Honduras?" said Rachel. She sounded shocked.

"I did him a good turn once, and he owes me a favor", said Ranger.

"You know the President of Honduras?" said Julie. She sounded impressed.

Ranger laughed. "I know many presidents, pipsqueak. They are just people with a different job than mine."

"Have you met the President of the United States?"

Ranger smiled. "Not this one, no."

"Have you met previous ones?"

"Yes."

"Which one?"

"I met President Obama once."

"What was he like?"

"He's a great man, a smart man, and he has an excellent sense of humor."

"Wow", said Julie. "Why did you meet him?"

Ranger smiled. "I had done some things in my career that he wanted to talk to me about."

"Like what?"

"I'm sorry, pipsqueak. That information is classified and I can't talk about it."

"Okay." She sounded disheartened and I watched her as she looked up through her lashes at her father to see if her 'pathetic' voice was working on her father. I smiled when she realized that it didn't matter what she did, Ranger wouldn't budge.

I quickly worked out timing in my head. Ranger had met President Obama, my guess was, after transporting bin Laden to the ship that was going to bury him at sea. It had been an important mission in US history, and I was sure that President Obama had something good to say to each of the team members afterwards. He was that kind of man.

We arrived at the Rangeman building, and Ron and Ranger got the suitcases out of the car. I hugged Rachel and Ron, then turned to Julie. I gave her a huge hug. "I'll see you tomorrow, sweetie", I said.

"I'm looking forward to it", said Julie. "Mom said that we could take you to all my favorite places in Miami."

"We'll plan out a route tonight", said Rachel. "Be prepared for one of the more unusual tourist tours of a city."

I laughed. "It sounds about perfect."

Ranger kissed Rachel on her cheek, shook Ron's hand, and scooped Julie into a hug. He kissed her on her cheek and stepped back. "I'll let you know what happens with the stalking case", he said. "Is there a time that we shouldn't call past?"

"I don't care what time you call", said Rachel. "I'll wait up to hear from you."

"Our meeting is at seven, so I doubt it will go too late. However, I don't know what we are doing afterwards."

"Whenever you get in, give me a call."

She gave Ranger another hug and whispered something in his ear, and he smiled as he stepped away. She gave me another hug, then turned and got in the car and, as we took our luggage and wheeled it into the Rangeman building, Ron and Rachel and Julie drove away.


	26. Chapter 26

I had a shower, redid my makeup, and dressed in a business-casual dress and blazer. I paired it with a pair of ballerina flats and was ready five minutes ahead of Ranger. The only reason that I was ready before him, of course, was because he was talking to the Chief of the DEA about the drug trafficking case.

I looked around the apartment. It was as luxurious as Ranger's, but it was set up differently. In this apartment, there were three bedrooms on one side of the apartment and a kitchen and dining room on the other. Between the two halves were an office, a family room and a living room. The apartment was spacious and tastefully decorated in creams, with navy and teal as accent colors. The apartment was also a penthouse apartment. Unlike in Trenton, this apartment only took up half the floor. Apparently Russ and his wife had an apartment that took up the other half.

Ranger came through from the bedroom. He looked around the apartment. "I like this place. Julie and I have had a lot of good times here."

"Do you get to see her much?"

"I come down every Easter, and whenever Rachel invites me. I also see her, usually for a dinner, whenever I'm in town. If I'm here for a few days, I might see her more than once. Julie has really been making an effort to spend more time with me over the last couple of years. It's like she has consciously decided that she wants a relationship with me, and she goes out of her way to include me in her life."

"Since she was kidnapped."

"Yes. Before then, I always got the feeling that Rachel was forcing the issue. Rachel wanted Julie and me to get along well together, and she was throwing us together hoping we would click. However, after Julie had been kidnapped, Julie started calling me more often and emailing me every week or so. Now she emails me nearly every day and tells me what is going on in her life. It's nice. I feel much more like a father than I ever had before. Before, I always felt a bit superfluous."

"Rachel said that she has suffered from depression and that it has been difficult for her to work, but that with your financial support they haven't had to worry about losing the house while she's been sick."

"I know they've been finding it tough. Rachel has been going through a bad patch in her life, and I'm happy to hear that I'm able to help her out in any way possible. I think this trip that she and Ron have planned will be good for them. When I buy out Wes, I'll be earning more. I was thinking, if it was okay with you, that I'd like to give twenty thousand to Ron and Rachel for their ten-year anniversary, to help them with their expenses for their trip. I'd also like to increase the amount of money I give to them for support. I worry about Rachel. She's really been struggling, and if the money I give them pays for a cleaner to come in every day, then it is a good use of money. If it pays for someone to come in and cook for them, it's a good use of money. Rachel is a good money manager. She won't waste the money, and she'll spend it on things that go towards supporting Julie."

"Have you ever fought over alimony issues?"

"No. From the start, Rachel and I have been able to talk through all our issues. I'm not saying that there weren't some doozies over the years. There was a reason we didn't work as a couple, after all. We are two very different people. But we have been able to create a strong friendship between us, and I think we co-parent together quite well. I am grateful that Rachel is as good a mother as she is. As for alimony, I figure out what I would have spent on Julie if she was living with me, and I give that money to Rachel. I think Rachel is always a little surprised that I give her as much as I do. She knows I give more than I have to. When we got divorced, the judge decreed how much I had to give per month. I have never given Rachel less than double the amount, even when I was in the army. It's important to me that Rachel has enough money to support Julie well and, selfishly, I feel that if I support Rachel adequately, she has to grant me access to Julie."

I smiled and kissed him on his cheek. "I've said it before and I'll say it again. You're a good man and I'm proud to call you my husband." Ranger flushed and I took pity on him and said, "we should get going or we'll be late."

Just then there was a knock on our door, and Ranger said, "that's probably Russ. He was supposed to meet us here."

Ranger opened the door to the apartment and introduced me to Russ. Russ grinned and shook my hand. "It's nice to meet the person who has brought Ranger to his knees", he said. "When Ranger was down the last time, I thought that he'd self-combust with frustration at not being with you. We whipped through a number of issues in a short period of time as Ranger tried to make sure that he wouldn't have to come back too soon. He missed you immensely."

I smiled. "I missed him too." We got on the elevator and pressed the button for the parking level.

"I anticipate that I'll be seeing him less now that he has you in his home. He will want to spend time with you and spend time with the baby, and he won't want to leave. Ranger is, and always will be, a family man."

"Julie has said that she'd be willing to come up to Trenton more as well, so we'll be able to see her that way. The baby won't be able to fly at first, so it may be the only way that I'll be able to see her."

"Julie is a great kid."

"Yes, she is. I enjoy spending time with her." I smiled with happiness. "In fact, she might be coming for a few weeks this summer. We'll be able to spend time together as a family, and she'll be able to meet her sister."

"So you are definitely having a girl?"

"She's due July fourth."

"Have you picked out names?"

"Yes. Her name will be Tia Rose Manoso. We thought it was pretty."

"I like it", said Russ. He turned to Ranger. "Our appointment is in half an hour, and at this time of the day it will take us about twenty minutes to get there."

As we left the elevator and walked into the parking garage, Russ said to me, "Ranger said that you are our Research Director? Your research department sounds like it is much bigger and does many more things than us. What do you do?"

"We do a variety of things." I explained all the different things that we did and, by the time we finished that conversation, we were almost at the police station.

Russ led us into the station, signed us in at the front desk, and minutes later we were led back to a conference room by a detective. When we got there, there were two other detectives and a captain in the room, and they stood when the Police Chief walked through the door.

The Police Chief introduced himself as Daniel Foote and the Captain introduced herself as Margie Mulder. I forgot the other three detectives' names. I had never been good with names, and they didn't talk during the meeting much.

Daniel looked at us. "First, let's talk about the case. I have been working with Margie, and she has been working with her team. Vice has been able to confirm that Patrick has been selling cocaine to dealers. We have witness statements saying that he has. That's the good news. The other piece of good news is that we've been able to verify your research. It took us a while, but all your research is good. I'm sorry that we had to do that, but for our own comfort it was important. We have never worked with you in the past, and we needed to do that before we could trust your work."

"I understand", said Ranger. "I would have done the same thing myself."

"The bad news is that we haven't found him yet."

"We have someone staking out the hotel that he is staying in", said Margie. "I anticipate that we will catch him soon. It is just a matter of time."

"We have a team waiting in his hotel room", said Russ. "If you don't catch him, we will. Just make sure you let us know when you have caught him so that we can take that team off surveillance again."

"How did you get in?" said Margie.

Russ smiled. "My men talked to the front desk and explained the situation, and the front desk gave them a key."

"How did they know that you were legit?"

"My staff all have badges and identification much like a police officer has. They were shown our identification and understood that we were going to capture him and put him in jail. It helped that we are the company that they have hired to service their security needs."

Margie looked at him in surprise. "We tried to get in, and the front desk stonewalled us."

Russ smiled. "My men can sweet-talk anyone, and there is some benefit with not being a part of the police force. Sometimes we can get in places that the police can't, just because we aren't the police."

Margie nodded.

Daniel jumped in. "The President in Honduras has called me personally to say that, as soon as we have finished investigating the case, he will deport Patrick and his father back to his country for sentencing and punishing. He had also received a copy of your research and he was horrified that anyone from his country could do any of the things that Patrick has been doing. He seemed appreciative of our help in detaining him. I take it that his possession of the research was your doing?"

Ranger smiled. "I know the President from previous work that I had done, and I knew that he would be upset that one of his countrymen was engaging in criminal activity. It gives his country a bad name, and he is trying desperately to clean up his country."

"I have also heard from the Chief of the DEA, who also has a copy of your research. Again your doing?"

"He is another friend", said Ranger.

Daniel laughed and shook his head. "Anyway, they waylaid a shipment of dog food and have now tested it, and they have found cocaine mixed with the food. They have agents going to the location the dog food was destined to look at the facility. Their thought is that the destination is where the food is separated from the drug and purified. They will get back to me when they have some findings from their investigation."

"I can actually talk to that point right now", said Ranger. "Michael, the DEA Chief, said that he sent this to you in an email, but I was talking to him personally just before getting here. He said his agents had stormed the place, and it was definitively where the dog food was separated from the cocaine. He also said that they had captured all the people who were working there today, and they were able to confirm that Patrick was the person picking up the drugs once they were purified and that Patrick's father knew about the drugs in the pet food."

"Okay", said Margie. "We have the route that the drugs were getting into the country. We have the method of separating out the drugs. We have confirmation that Patrick's father knew about the drugs being smuggled in using the pet food, that Patrick was the person picking up the drugs, and that Patrick has been selling the drugs in Miami."

"We also have confirmation that he has been selling drugs in seven other cities as well", said Ranger. "I have talked to all their police chiefs, and their vice squads all have witnesses that say that he sold drugs to them."

"So will the other cities bring forward charges as well?" said Margie.

"Yes. The other cities, like you, are working with the DEA to bring forward charges", said Ranger.

"Let me guess – the other cities were able to use your research as well?" said Daniel.

Ranger smiled. "Of course. There is no point in doing research if people don't use it."

Daniel laughed and Margie smiled.

"Okay", said Daniel. "Those are the results to date of the drug trafficking and drug dealing charges. The second issue is the pedophile charge. Margie?"

"I have worked with the other three police forces' special victims units, and have found that there are several similarities in what happened. In each case, the victims were originally approached through Tinder. Patrick's profile was a teenaged boy who seemed benign. He is computer-savvy and able to figure out where they live, partly through research and partly through what the girls have said. He then started stalking them in person, taking pictures of them in a variety of situations including through windows when they were dressing or in the bathroom, and sending them to the girls. He threatened the girls and demanded that he meet them. Of the three cases, two actually went to meet him out of fear for their parents. He sexually abused them and again threatened them. However, their parents figured out that something was wrong and with encouragement the kids broke down and told their parents what was happening. We have the copy of the transcript from Julie's computer as well as a copy of the transcripts from the other three girls. We got a warrant for his computer, and were able to seize it and analyze it. There is definitive proof that he was the person responsible for using that computer and additional proof that the computer was the one that was used to converse with the girls. We have police sketches of Patrick that were done according to the girls' memories of what he looked like. We have him on the pedophile case. Interestingly, there were five other girls that he had approached that we didn't know anything about, and the police in those cities are contacting those girls and their families to follow their cases through the system."

"The Honduran President has said that he will be heard and sentenced on the pedophile charges as well", said the Chief.

"Thank you", said Ranger. "In addition to disgust that someone could do something like that to anyone, let alone a young girl, I have a personal interest in the case. Julie is my daughter."

"God, he picked the wrong person to piss off", said one of the detectives. Everyone laughed.

"By the way", said Ranger, "Julie has said that she isn't very good at public speaking but that, if you want someone to go into schools to talk about what happened, she'd be willing to do so. She wants to make sure that no other child has to go through what she has gone through."

"Apparently she is a chip off the old block when it comes to a desire to do the right thing", said Daniel.

"We'll keep that in mind", said Margie. "That is a generous offer and I'll pass it on to the Education Unit. I suspect that they will want to take her up on that."

"You have a lot to be proud of in your daughter", said Daniel.

Ranger smiled. "Yes, I do."

"This brings us to our final issue that we wanted to talk to you about, and although I would like Margie to stay for this conversation, I don't think the detectives need to be here." The detectives all stood, thanked us and shook our hands, and left the room.

Daniel looked at us. "I'll get right to the point. We liked the research that you did. How did you do it? It is far more detailed and you did it in a much shorter period of time than it would take us to come up with less."

"I'll turn that question over to Steph", said Ranger. "As our Research Director and the one that did the research personally, she will better be able to answer your question."

"Thanks, Ranger." I turned to the officers. "We have an in-house designed search engine that we use. I have found that it is far more complex than any other of the standard search engines that the police use and can find out things about you that even you didn't know. A cursory search takes half an hour to do. A more in-depth search takes much longer. In a cursory search, much of the information is found out by In-Spect and is plugged into a standardized form. There is little that the researcher needs to do other than to review it and make sure there are no inconsistencies in the information or glaring areas that need further investigation. In more detailed searches, you do a cursory search and then follow all the leads, going down rabbit holes and looking at data dumps. So while a cursory search does just the standard overview and doesn't look at anything further in-depth, a more detailed search looks at things in-depth and is done largely by the researcher, investigating the links identified in the cursory search. A detailed search takes much longer. To put it in perspective, the search into Patrick and his father took me eight hours on Saturday."

"Is it a problem that you don't know the city?" said Margie. "After all, in your research you didn't know the different locations."

"It doesn't matter", I said. "Yes, it is easier for me to know the locations if I am the person going out to pick the felon up. However, what I am doing is looking at the search results and commenting on similarities and regularities. I review credit card statements, for example, and detail commonalities in charges – and I relate that to the other information that I pull up. I don't necessarily need to know that Joe's Bar is a dive bar or that it's located in a rough neighborhood. I just need to know that the felon frequents the bar every night and around six o'clock pays his bill with a credit card."

"Would it be possible to get a copy of that search engine?"

Ranger smiled. "I'm sorry, but that software is proprietary."

Margie looked frustrated but Daniel smiled. "Would it be possible that we'd be able to get you to do searches for us?"

"We already do that for the Trenton Police Department and the Newark Police Division", said Ranger. "We also currently have agreements ready to be signed with the Jersey City Police Department and the New Jersey State Police, and after seeing our research this week, the DEA has indicated an interest in using our services as well."

"How does it work with the other police departments?" said Daniel.

"The departments pay us a monthly retainer for our services. It's used to upgrade the software and to make sure we have enough people on staff to do the work. This monthly retainer is based on the size of the city and how often you anticipate that you will be using us, and it buys access to our research department and is a flat rate. The police department then pays an hourly rate of seventy-five dollars an hour for searches. When police departments want searches done, they often want detailed searches. To give you something to ballpark for time spent, these take an average of five hours to complete each search for each person."

"There are two types of research services that we offer to the different police departments", I said. "The first is the detailed research that you saw through the work that we did this last week. The second is by preparing capture plans. I come from a bounty hunter background, and I know the secret to doing a fast and painless capture is a successful capture plan. This would analyze the research that I could find and identify known haunts and common locations. The police departments want that done when they are having trouble finding a particular felon."

"If this is a service you are interested in using, I can prepare a proposal for you", said Ranger. "That will, however, have to wait for a couple of weeks. I won't be back in the office until the next week and won't be able to prepare one before then. Also, if you are interested in doing this, what I recommend for all our sakes is that a liaison is selected in the MPD that we deal with. All of your requests would go through him or her. This would enable you to keep control of your expenses. On our side, it will ensure that all requests are sanctioned by the MPD. The Rangeman liaison that you'd be working with would be Stephanie, although she won't be the liaison while she is off on maternity leave."

"I will, of course, be designating a replacement and will let you know who that person is", I said.

"This is definitely something that we are interested in doing", said the Chief. "Get that proposal to us and we'll review it and get back to you."

"I'd be interested in being the liaison", said Margie. "With being responsible for many of the departments which would use your services, I think I would best be able to liaise with the Rangeman team."

I smiled at her. "Thank you for offering. I'd like to work more closely with you."

The Chief looked at us and smiled. "I think that is all we had to talk to you about this evening. Did anyone else have something to say?"

I shook my head and, when it was apparent that no one else had anything to add, the Chief stood up and shook our hands. "Thank you for coming in after hours. I know that you probably didn't want to work on your first evening here in Miami. However, we appreciated it and I think we did good work this evening."

Ranger smiled. "So do I."

Russ's phone chimed with an incoming text, and he looked down and smiled. "One of my patrol teams has picked up Patrick at his hotel. They have done a citizen's arrest and are waiting for transfer to the MPD."

Margie smiled. "It's my turn to do my job now", she said with a grin. "Thanks for all your help."

"I have never heard of Rangeman before", said the Chief as Margie hurried away.

Ranger smiled. "We are a small but growing full-service security company." He explained everything we did.

"I wish that we had access to your ERTs as well as your research department", said the Chief. "They sound like they would be helpful in a firefight."

"They are", said Ranger. "They are as well or better trained than your SWAT team. In fact, in Trenton they don't have the demand for a SWAT team and use the state team when needed. But my team has a mobilization time of ten minutes and can be at the required location within half an hour – and that is a faster response time than the state team. The retainer they pay is for both access to the research department as well as access to the ERTs – and then they also pay an hourly rate on top that covers the ten ERT members and the unit commander. When I prepare the proposal for you, I'll prepare one with two potential monthly retainers – one to include the ERTs, and one for just the research department."

"That would be excellent", said the Police Chief. "I have to think about whether we would use the ERTs. Although it would be helpful knowing that they were there, I'll have to decide as to whether they are worth the extra cost."

"I understand", said Ranger. "I won't sell you on a service you don't need. However, you won't be able to make that decision until you know the potential cost so I will quote it anyway."

"I'd appreciate it."

We shook his hand again and walked out of the precinct. As we walked over to Russ's car, he said, "it sounds like we're growing again."

Ranger smiled. "Yes, it does."

"Pretty soon Research is going to need its own building. I have a feeling that it's the fastest growing department in the company."

Ranger smiled. "That's what I'm finding. A year ago, the research department was comprised of just Steph. Now there are seven people on staff and it looks like it will be growing again."

"Have you ever thought about switching all research over to head office? I only have one staff doing research, but he can't do anything that you can do. He is, in fact, particularly useless and I have been having problems with him. Sales would be thrilled if they could get access to the kind of research that is done in head office."

"That is something that we can talk about further tomorrow", said Ranger. "I want to think about that overnight and talk further with Stephanie about it."

"Fair enough." Russ smiled. "There's nothing like corporate growth to whet your appetite. Who's hungry?"

My stomach rumbled loudly on cue. "Apparently our baby girl is", I said with a rueful grin.

_~ The End ~_

_Thank you for reading Fiesta 35. I hope you enjoyed it. Step 36 is the next story in the series, and I'll start posting it today. - Sarah_


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